


Suture Up Your Future

by zaelish



Series: Suture Up Your Future [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: (lots of it), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Low Chaos Corvo Attano, Low Chaos Daud (Dishonored), M/M, Occasional fluff, Slow Burn, happy end (spoiler alert??? lmfao)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2019-10-23 02:11:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 160,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17674448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaelish/pseuds/zaelish
Summary: When a little bird tells Corvo that this coup isn’t the first time that the Empire has faced Delilah’s threat, he sets out to find the last person he expected—or wanted—to ever see again.





	1. Chapter 1

_Delilah was born a pawn, but now she's got the throne. Fifteen years ago, the assassin Daud could have warned you about her... if you'd bothered to ask._

*

Corvo gasped, tearing himself out of fitful sleep. He shot up into an upright position on the wire cot, the overly sudden movement making his vision swim for a second, and winced at the pang in his left hand before bringing it up for inspection. The fresh Mark of the Outsider darkening the skin rendered the ache anticipated—the design stung from the inside and burned in slow, dull flashes before dampening when the magic finally fused with the flesh several moments later. Corvo turned over and clenched his hand into a fist a few times as he examined it, pleased to feel the familiar tingling sensation without which he, admittedly, felt naked in the past several hours.

He hadn’t thought it was possible, but his powers were taken away—his Mark literally pulled off his hand—by a witch. The witch that corrupted Duke Abele and the City Watch, then turned his daughter to stone and seized her throne, all barely a single day ago. The witch that Corvo knew next to nothing about—a fact that by itself was enough to shake him with self-reproaching disbelief.

Once again, he failed. He let his guard down. He grew overconfident. He let himself believe that no harm would come to Emily again, not as long as he was by her side. He didn’t do everything in his power to protect his Empress, his _family_ , as if the first lesson wasn’t enough. 

He had to fix this, he’d be damned if he didn’t.

The mere thought of Delilah was enough to send Corvo into a rage, but the fact that this coup flew over his head, that he hasn’t intercepted it when it was still in the works and instead threw the Dunwall Tower’s doors wide open to let it in, hurt more than his anger ever could. 

It was like Delilah appeared out of nowhere. 

But that wasn’t an excuse. There were no excuses. He'd had dozens of spies at his disposal and still failed at the one job he had; he should have been more thorough with the recon of the others Isles, he should have known, he should have known _something_ —

_“Fifteen years ago—”_

The Outsider’s visit was somewhat reassuring, but too brief. Corvo needed more information, and of course the god wasn’t too keen on just handing it out whenever he wanted it. Corvo gripped the flimsy bedding and clenched his teeth in thought, staring blankly ahead at the wall of the cramped, rusted cabin that made his bedroom for the foreseeable future. If he hoped to return home again, if he were to make up for the fifteen Void-damned years that Delilah has apparently been a concern, then he would need much more than a sword and a Mark on his hand to get by.

_“He could have warned you about her if you'd bothered to ask._

_“But you were too busy for questions.”_

Corvo hissed out a slow, shaky breath. If he was going to do something about this situation, then he had to act fast, and most of all, he needed help. That fact was easy enough to accept, no matter how unpleasant. Meagan Foster with her _Dreadful Wale_ was a welcome associate, especially with her ties to Sokolov, but Corvo doubted that either of them had the answers he needed—especially when his questions only grew in number.

After fifteen years, Daud’s name was the last thing Corvo had expected to hear in the Void. He had never known the Outsider to drop names for no reason, and he didn’t like it, far from it, but the circumstances demanded dire measures. And if the god was trying to suck Corvo into his new game, if he had to find the one man that could give him answers that were long overdue, then so be it.

The Outsider’s visit was too brief, but perhaps the god could be persuaded into giving more clues. Otherwise, seeking out one man in all the Isles was a task Corvo would have to either shoulder on his own or abandon completely, and neither of those options sounded favorable. In any case, he had to start somewhere, and that _somewhere_ was exactly the hole in which the Knife of Dunwall was hiding.

*

Perhaps the Outsider considered his new train of thought somehow _interesting_ , or perhaps—Corvo was sure of it, more like—he was walking right into the god’s trap, because the next night, as the _Dreadful Wale_ made its way towards the waters of Serkonos, Corvo once again opened his eyes to the cold, dark nothingness. 

He’d spent that day planning their next steps with Meagan, poring over maps of Karnaca and Sokolov’s notes on the coup until his head threatened to split with the sheer weight of the task before them. The thought of Daud flitting in the back of his mind didn’t help anything, and it took just one glance at the map of the Isles to realize that the man could be literally anywhere. Or he could be dead, for all Corvo knew. The plan—or lack thereof—did not have nearly enough structure to be prioritized over Sokolov’s rescue or to even be brought to the table yet, so at the moment Corvo thought it best to focus on one thing at a time and figure out the rest as he went. Somehow.

Now, though, instead of getting his much needed sleep, Corvo was all too happy to be staring at the Outsider again, for once exactly when it was needed. 

“Where is he?”

The Outsider blinked slowly, seemingly ignorant (or trying to appear so, at least) on the subject of Corvo’s query. “Where is who?”

With neither energy nor patience for games, Corvo squared his jaw and bit out a reply in place of a snippy retort he might have given were he in a more generous mood. “ _Daud._ Where is Daud?” 

The Outsider only cocked his head in his unhurried scrutiny of Corvo’s form, once again leaving the man feeling like his black eyes saw right through his flesh. Just like always, Corvo couldn’t ignore the reflexive chill in his bones.

“And here I thought you wished to never hear that name again,” the Outsider finally drawled when the few seconds of silence began to feel like hours. Corvo gave an aggravated huff and crossed his arms—stress and exhaustion made him a bit more irritable than he’d like. 

“Sure, and it would have stayed that way if _you_ hadn’t mentioned anything about his involvement with Delilah. And if you‘re not going to tell me anything of value about her, then he will, so please do get on with it.”

“And why do you think he would tell you anything now?”

Corvo narrowed his eyes in surprise. “I’ll make sure he does.” When no response followed, he very nearly snarled. “Look, I just need his location.” He spread his hands, as if in invitation. “If it’s another show you want, then I have no doubt you’ll get it. But until then, I need you to work with me here.”

“But of course, the Lord Protector’s tale must continue.” The notes in the Outsider’s voice were akin to amusement. “How does it feel, coming so close to losing another Empress?” His form dissolved in an instant before materializing at Corvo’s shoulder in the next, making him flinch to the side in spite of himself. It seemed the Void didn’t ever allow its patrons to get used to its oddments. “Though perhaps you already have. Who knows if Delilah’s spell can even be broken...”

Corvo’s blood ran cold, but he refused to acknowledge that at the back of his mind was scraping the same exact worry. He clenched his jaw, if only to ground himself in his forced conviction that whatever he did would be enough to see Emily in the flesh and breathing again. “ _I_ know. Which makes me a little short on time, so if you’re quite finished—”

“Serkonos.” The Outsider drew back, looking ready to raise an eyebrow but apparently seeing it fit not to bother. “But you already knew that.”

Corvo frowned, a bit caught off guard by the Outsider’s quick cooperation. Sure, of all the places Daud could possibly be, Serkonos was the first to come to mind, but that didn’t mean it was the most plausible option. It was too obvious, too easy. Though he wasn't about to deny that the _Dreadful Wale’s_ set destination of Karnaca made the thought very, very appealing.

“Why would he go into hiding on the most obvious of the Isles?” he asked without really expecting an answer.

“Perhaps because people like you so easily jump to discarding it as a possibility.” 

Corvo supposed that was fair. There were likely multiple reasons at play, of course—maybe the Knife of Dunwall didn’t care about being found and just wanted to finally settle down somewhere near his childhood home. Maybe he didn’t care about anything anymore. That was likely enough, if their last meeting fifteen years ago was any indication. Has anything changed? What did time do to a man who murdered an empress? 

Opening his eyes again to the low ceiling of his cabin, Corvo ran through his thoughts to at least try to put them into some semblance of order. It was simple enough to acknowledge that his determination to do anything to put his daughter back on the throne, _again_ , somewhat subdued the wretchedness of seeking out Jessamine’s murderer for help, of all people. Corvo could grit his teeth all he liked, but right now this wasn’t about him or his lasting anger—he was going to let go of his pride and suppress all the thoughts that screamed at him about how _wrong_ this was and he was going to use any means at his disposal to correct his failing as Royal Protector, Spymaster, and father. 

Something told Corvo that he should be… delicate about disclosing his plans to Meagan. Unknowing what the stranger’s reaction to reaching out to the infamous assassin could be, he fully expected the worst, as was her and any normal person’s right. For this reason he thought it best to hold off; just arrive to Karnaca and learn Sokolov’s location from Doctor Hypatia, all the while keeping an ear out for whispers and rumors of Daud’s whereabouts. After his search was considerably narrowed already, it was too much to hope that Daud was also in Karnaca, but nevertheless, every possibility was valid and no scouting opportunity should go to waste. By the time he had enough information to move forward with, he thought, he should be more acquainted with Meagan and have a better idea of the amount of trust he should be placing in her. Corvo didn’t want to discredit her aid, he couldn’t put his gratitude into words if he tried, but his judgment advised against submitting someone he just met to an introduction with Dunwall’s most notorious killer. Especially when Corvo himself had no idea where the man stood.

He could count his current allies on one hand and would do nothing to risk losing them, at least not at first, when he needed the most support to carry out any plans at all. So for now he would do his own part, quietly. Perhaps Daud didn’t concern himself with the affairs of others anymore, but that was no matter. With Delilah now a priority on an empire-wide scale, with the loss of another empress at stake, Corvo would find him and _make_ him care. 

It was time to pay debts, and as far as Corvo was concerned, Daud would be owing him for the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> owo what's this????
> 
> Credit where credit is due: the title is from the song Suture Up Your Future by Queens of the Stone Age


	2. Chapter 2

The two full weeks that it took for the _Dreadful Wale_ to reach Karnaca’s ports crept by agonizingly slowly, during which Corvo made a few dozen laps around the ship’s interior, learned by heart its every nook and cranny, and could now probably make his way from the bridge to the galley and back with his eyes closed in less than a minute. Not that he tried. 

“Lord Attano—” Meagan had called at one point when they were gathered in the briefing room, interrupting whatever Corvo was saying and making him whip his head around to raise a questioning eyebrow at her. “Would you _please_ stop pacing so much?” she’d said before turning her attention back to the papers laid out in her lap, the stiffness of her tone making it clear that the captain was working hard to stay polite. “You’re making my eye hurt,” she’d added under her breath—though not quiet enough for Corvo to miss it. 

He was restless, yes, but there was nothing he could do about it. The plans that he and Meagan—mostly Meagan, since the intelligence on the Crown Killer came from Sokolov’s notes—made did nothing to put him at ease when all he could physically do was wear out the soles of his boots on the floorboards. He could sit down. Or _lie_ down. But every time he did he felt like he was slowly getting smothered by the hollow, helpless feeling of inactivity, so he only really visited his cabin during nighttime, for the necessity of sleep. 

Sleep was good. He had to stay energized.

Taking a few minutes to stare at the bulletin board first thing in the morning has become a routine. Day after day it stayed the same—the board still held too much empty space, there was too little information on Delilah or the Duke’s plans beyond the Crown Killer conspiracy for them to go off of. Despite his first steps being fairly clear, the lack of any longterm clarity of plan dawned on Corvo more and more, and he could only hope he could stay afloat when he jumped into action. When he wasn’t pacing around the ship he was fumbling with his signet ring, twisting it this way and that on his finger. He couldn’t dare think of losing Emily. He just couldn’t. 

The Heart provided with some solace.

_“You are troubled, my love. Frightened. Don’t be.”_

“I will get our daughter back, Jess. I swear it.” The organ only beat twice against his chest in response. It was enough. 

*

Meagan’s “Ready to go?” was the sweetest thing he’s heard in weeks.

Setting his feet on the solid ground of his birth land was like a gulp of fresh air after having suffocated in a box for days. Really, he may as well have been.

“Keep your wits about you,” Meagan said, turning the skiff around and starting back toward the ship. Corvo only nodded—all else has been said, and there was nothing to add. He knew what he had to do. He thought.

The sultry Karnacan air was all too familiar to the part of him that always wanted to return to his first home, and soon it was getting hot under his mask as he, surprisingly unhurried (he had to bide his time and assess the environment, always), made his way through the crowds of merchants in the streets. The standing smell of fish—laid out fresh on the market stalls, or rotting on the bloodied storm drains, or both—really completed the picture, and for the first time Corvo actually _felt_ all the years that he’d spent in Dunwall. How different his life used to be, here, in the eighteen years of his youth. Coming back definitely stirred up memories, both welcome and unwanted.

This number of bloodfly nests at every turn was new, however.

He’d heard about the infestation’s spreading, everyone did. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as the Rat Plague, so was largely ignored by authorities. And it wasn’t like a lot could be done, really. Or so the wealthy told themselves, silently thankful that the nests mostly spawned in the lowliest and dirtiest of the streets, where the higher class would never set foot by choice. 

Corvo nearly shit himself when he knocked over a vase in an abandoned apartment and the blaring buzzing behind him took him by surprise. The irritating ringing was not unlike the song of the Outsider’s runes and bonecharms, in some sense—the sheer viciousness of the swarms’ sound was nothing like he remembered from childhood. No, he’d have to be actually careful in this place. He could tell himself that he knew Karnaca inside and out all he liked, but it was time to realize that the city has changed in the thirty-six years that he was away. 

Getting around the Grand Guard and the Walls of Light was easier than he thought, which made his heart sink, just a little—the memories of his Dunwall’s rooftop travels from fifteen years ago, and specifically their circumstances, never failed to deject his spirits. Blinking away just in time by pure muscle memory before this or that guard took notice, _sneaking around_ again like some criminal (and wasn’t he now, in the eyes of so many?), seeing the same dreadful technology at every corner. Kirin Jindosh’s new inventions, they said. To keep the city in order, they said.

Karnaca was never the prettiest place to live in, but this was pushing it. He wanted to kick himself for not having done something about it when he had the chance. 

_“There is more here than corruption and pain. Don't despair, there is goodness here too.”_ The corner of Corvo’s mouth twitched into a wistful smile as he brought his hand over the Heart in his breast pocket so as to acknowledge it. Really, he could use some of Jessamine’s unwavering strength at times. 

His own heart gave an unsettling beat when Jessamine’s voice pushed his thoughts again to her murderer. He swallowed, wincing slightly at the roughness in his parched throat, and pressed on with more vigor than before. Perhaps it’d take his mind off of things. 

*

“Want to help me with something? You scratch my ass, I scratch yours.”

Corvo took care to look for any outstanding details in the woman’s form as she took a drag on her cigar. She looked completely relaxed, lounging on the torn couch with her arm folded behind her head like she owned the whole damn street. Perhaps she did. 

The Heart gave a gentle beat. _“Mindy Blanchard. Second in command of the Howlers. Early on, she felt like she'd been born into the wrong life, so she set about making it right.”_

Corvo raised an eyebrow. The Howlers—yet another one of the roaming gangs, probably—nothing of note. 

“I need to get to Addermire Institute,” he said, not without suspicion. “Can you help?”

Mindy cocked her head, moved her eyes down and up Corvo’s form with a lazy purse of her lips before taking another long drag. “Yeah, I know how to do that.” Without an ability to rely on facial expressions with his mask on, Corvo cocked his head as well, in place of telling her to get on with it. Mindy continued. “You go get a body for me and I’ll help you with your problem. Don’t worry, he’s already dead.”

Great, just what he needed. “You want me to bring you a corpse?” He already sounded tired. “What’s the story there?”

“The Overseers are holding him at their outpost. They think he was a kind of witch.” That got Corvo’s attention. He raised his chin and crossed his arms as Mindy took a moment to twist her mouth in distaste. “When you have him, meet me in the old basement below the dentist’s office near there.” 

Corvo was ready to leave at once. “I’ll consider it,” he said. Mindy only waved her cigar with a flourish in the direction of the window that he climbed into in the first place. 

“Good luck,” she drawled, like she didn’t really mean it. Corvo didn’t expect her to.

He blinked his way up onto a roof of one of the taller buildings nearby, and settled behind a stone pillar to think. The Overseers weren’t a bad place to start, actually—with their dealings in all things heretical, Corvo was almost hopeful to find something of value in their base, something that would bring him closer to Daud. A letter. A clue. Anything. 

He seriously doubted that Daud neglected using the Outsider’s gifts. Corvo expected any Marked to depend on their power like a drug, a phenomenon to which he himself was no stranger—in any extended period of dormancy his hand would first start to tingle, then itch, then outright ache as the Mark hungered for any and all activity. And so he took fairly regular nocturnal trips around the roofs of Dunwall. There was benefit in it, of course. It kept his skills sharp, it kept him aware of the city’s mood. That, he found, was sometimes difficult to gauge from behind his desk in Dunwall Tower. More than that, Corvo had to selfishly admit to himself, he had to do it if he wished to keep his hand intact—he didn’t exactly _know_ what would happen if he didn’t use magic for too long, but the pain that arose without fail kept him from wanting to find out.

When he would, however, clench his fist and become a puff in the wind for a split second, when the solid ground would disappear from under his feet and a gust of cold night air would shoot up his nose as he found his footing on the next roof—in those brief moments it felt that this rush was worth everything. 

He could only hope that the moment he started to _believe_ that would never come.

He suspected Daud was the same way. He had to be—he’s had his Mark for a much longer time than Corvo, it must have been... intwined with his essence by now, or some other black magic bullshit that the Outsider undoubtedly could, but never would, explain to his toys. 

If Daud was here, then the Overseers would have to have heard something about him and his abilities. With that thought, Corvo jumped off the roof and, in midair, blinked to a balcony across the street. He’d find him. Somehow.

*

But getting to the Addermire Institute was still the priority. 

That was what Corvo told himself when he was climbing in the window on the—third? fourth?—floor of the building at the foot of which a couple of Overseers preached to some rich folk on the street. In general, a number of the zealots loitering nearby signified that he was probably in the right place. 

The room he turned up in only confirmed that. How convenient that he’d find himself staring directly at the seven plaques with the Strictures. 

He hurried to crouch by the doorway, clenching his eyes hard and opening them sharply to peek through the Void and shoot a quick glance around. Two men in the next room, one in the back of what must be a long hallway, and some more activity on the upper floor. Not too bad—as this seemed to be some sort of office building, there should be lots of cupboards and tables to hide behind. He loaded a sleep dart into his crossbow, just in case. He didn’t have many—the poison was fairly expensive and hopefully he wouldn’t need it.

One of the two men got up from a chair and started in the direction of Corvo’s hiding place. Corvo checked to see if the other Overseer was still turned around on the far side of the room, then waited until the first one passed the large desk in the center and blinked on top of it, turning up right behind him.

Only a few moments after he dragged the first Overseer under the desk to let him snore in peace, Corvo‘s arm was already wrapped around the second one’s throat. That was two men down, and hopefully enough time to skim over and gather any papers he could find before anyone else walked into the room. He got to work.

The Vice Overseer’s portrait looming over the room looked very promising, and so did the sight of several papers and books scattered on and around the desk. Corvo grabbed at anything he could find that had words on it, eyes darting left to right along the lines, if not just a bit frantically.

_Sister Allison, Recorder of Proceedings...and complete transcript of the uttering of Sister...Hiding a thousand evils...Heresy! Ten - twenty wretches. Servants of the Void...in a hidden alley...heart of the Dust District…_

_...Overseer Khulan...Forgive my stream of...problems in Serkonos are significant...Abele is a travesty...Paolo and his gang grow bolder every day...new sightings of the Eyeless...correspondence with our Oracular Sisters...recent proclamations possess an unusual cadence…_

_...Decisions made during Cloistered Gatherings...prepared with heavy incense and blessings…_

Corvo kept stuffing papers in his pockets, even ripped a few pages out of some book he didn’t get to read the name of. He clenched his teeth, taking another look around but finding nothing of value. Nothing was jumping out at him at first glance—some mere mentions of active gangs were expected and didn’t tell him anything, but then he did try to not get his hopes up. Didn’t he?

The lower floors turned up pretty fruitless as well, but still Corvo hung on to any loose scrap of paper that had more than two words scrawled on it. He’d have to make sense of them all back on the ship; he simply couldn’t afford to waste any more time here.

When the Heart, apparently having caught sense of some bonecharm, seemed to agree with his thoughts by giving a couple of soft beats when he looked up, Corvo transversed to the staircase and crept up to the next floor, listening to a new Overseer’s words that became louder as he got closer and closer.

“This heretic’s body is important, even though I don’t fully understand the situation. We’ll wait for the Vice Overseer.”

...and there was Mindy’s friend.

*

The Crown Killer was no more, and whatever happened to Dr. Hypatia, Corvo hoped he’d seen the last of.

He’d made the counter-serum, waited for the right moment to stick the syringe into the side of Doctor’s neck when the beast inside her mind seemed to least expect it, and tried to not give in to frustration when Alexandria Hypatia rubbed her temples as if in lingering headache and apologized for not remembering anything that’s happened. It was to be expected, Corvo told himself. She wasn’t in her right mind—couldn’t be.

“If you need a place to lay low for a few days, come find us,” he offered, forcing the determination back into his voice. “I’m staying with an ally on a boat called the _Dreadful Wale_.”

The Doctor gave an uncoordinated nod, but Corvo couldn’t be sure that she even understood a thing he said. Part of him wanted to simply take her with him, lead her out of this place that’s become her prison in the past three years—but, it seemed, this was her home, as far as she was concerned. Especially now, when most of her memories were lost. He wouldn’t force the choice on her. 

He doubted he could get any information out of her, anyway.

Making his way back turned out more eventful than he’d like, because as soon as he stepped out of Hypatia’s lab he heard a distant wail of a woman. It came from somewhere above, and while part of him silently screamed to just leave it be and _go_ , he couldn’t ignore the sheer helplessness in the voice. It sounded like a cry for help, or of pain—it cut through the silence of the Institute and Corvo couldn’t help but to start upstairs once again, hoping to find the poor woman and help in whatever way he could.

He blinked onto a chandelier that, while large enough to hold him, tilted dangerously under his weight. Still, that closed the distance enough for him to climb on the ceiling frame, after which he slowly made his way to the center of the room where the cries were loudest. He looked around in search of the sound’s source before finally his eyes caught on a large pile of rubble obstructed by a column. He moved farther to the side in order to get a better angle.

The woman—perhaps an Institute worker, or maybe one of the guards, he couldn’t tell—was lying on the floor and crying out into the silence as she tried to no avail to pull herself out from a large filing cabinet that lay on its side, pinning down her leg. Corvo swore under his breath and immediately transversed onto the floor next to her.

“Miss, stop struggling,” he said as he approached and began to hastily assess the situation. “You’ll make it worse. Stay still, I’m here to help.”

The woman looked up at him with a hopeful and relieved expression and burst into a new surge of tears, probably because of the pain. _“Please,”_ she choked out, and Corvo grimaced as he felt a phantom pang in his own leg. “Please get me out, please, get this thing off—”

Corvo couldn’t have been more glad for the extra strength the Mark of the Outsider granted him as he braced himself, digging his heels into the floor and, with great straining effort, grabbed at the cabinet’s corner and lifted it by several inches. He realized too late that the woman probably couldn’t even crawl out on her own. 

“Can you move?” He grunted through clenched teeth because maybe—hopefully—he was wrong. The woman shrieked as she tried to move her leg and Corvo pursed his lips in dismay. By the looks of it, she wasn’t about to be moving anywhere.

He began to feel moisture gathering on his forehead under his mask—his arms were about to give out and he tried to frantically figure something out when a sharp _puff_ resonated below. When he threw his glance back to the woman, she was gone.

The cabinet met the floor with a thundering slam. Corvo whipped his body around just in time to duck out of the way of a dark red tendril that shot out towards his throat. He clenched his fist reflexively, appearing on a high ledge on the other side of the room and breathed out in shock. 

There were now three women in the room—three _witches_ that he could see, at least, before each of them disappeared into shadowy dust one after another and materialized in different points. The one with the recently crushed leg—her leg was fine, as it turned out—was now perched up on the bookcase opposite of Corvo, sneering at him like she’d just beaten him in a terrible game. 

“The Royal Protector,” an inappropriately sultry voice drawled somewhere on his right and Corvo took note of the slowly advancing dark-haired witch in his peripheral vision. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

Yeah, no shit.

“You _murdered_ our mistress’ pet,” the other one, with red hair, hissed somewhere behind him. Corvo darted his eyes around the room, planning his next steps. The rickety chandelier was the best bet he had; if he were to blink up there again it could bide him enough time to pull out his crossbow— “and now she will be upset with us.” 

“Should’ve guarded it better, then,” he replied, for distraction’s sake. Which was probably not the best thing to do because it seemed to strike a nerve in the witch advancing from the right, who threw all her attempts at stealth out the window and shrieked, launching herself through the air at Corvo’s position. Corvo clenched his teeth and transversed onto the chandelier that gave the most miserable creak—in the next moment it very nearly tipped over as the red-haired witch grabbed onto its edge in a failed attempt to follow after him and, having lost her grip, fell down towards the floor with a shriek of her own. The chandelier swung with the sudden imbalance of weight, making Corvo lose his footing. He slipped, glancing down just fast enough to acknowledge the fallen witch’s position and doing his best to jump off just so that he landed on top of her.

When his sword buried itself in the back of her neck with the full force of his weight, the thought of having to deal with two witches instead of three warmed his heart. 

Corvo threw himself out of the way when the first witch appeared right in front of him and threw out her arm, shooting out another tendril of vegetation that made a sound akin to cracking of a whip. Corvo exhaled a sharp sigh before jumping and blinking midair on top of the bookcase she recently sat on. The next moment brought the dark-haired woman from the other side of the room as she slammed into Corvo and almost made him fall off, if not for the way he grabbed onto her upper arm at the last second. He hissed in pain then, as three or four short but sharp needles—thorns growing out of her skin, he realized—dug into his palm, but still he held the witch more or less in place as she thrashed and tried to claw at him. He chose the best moment to stab her clean through the chest, and took a deep breath as he let her body fall limply to the floor. 

His powers were waning and a headache was coming on—his whole body ached for some Addermire Solution. There was no time for drinking, however. 

The last witch has been keeping herself occupied, it seemed—four long, meaty tendrils now writhed out of the ground and thrashed violently toward Corvo’s position. And they would have reached him, too, if not for the rush of adrenaline that let him jump up and off the bookcase, in the process gathering the last bits of his mental energy into his blazing fist and transversing right into the witch.

With the element of surprise on his side, he grabbed her by the shoulder and blinked once again—for the last time until he drank the damn remedy—into the far corner of the room, out of the tendrils’ reach.

They both slammed into the wall, and when the witch slipped to the floor Corvo pinned her down with his knee pressed against her midriff. He didn’t linger—just adjusted his grip on his sword and slit her throat. Clean and quick.

Finally, he let himself gasp for air he so desperately needed. 

Corvo sat next to the witch’s body and lifted his mask to his forehead, welcoming the fresh air on his heated face. He took a couple of moments to simply _breathe_ , then opened his coat to fumble in a breast pocket for a small blue vial and immediately felt his energy returning after gulping down its contents. He stared blankly at the center of the room where the monstrous vegetation was quieting down, seemingly for lack of sound to be aggravated by. 

No, he had to get Dr. Hypatia out of here right now. He couldn’t leave her fate up to more witches that would undoubtedly turn up here later.

He hoped this was the end of it, for that day.

*

Back on the _Dreadful Wale_ , the doctor, having regained patches of her memory, told them that the inventor Kirin Jindosh was the Duke’s accomplice. What’s more, Jindosh seemed to have a strange obsession with Sokolov and was likely holding him hostage, which meant that Corvo would have to pay him a visit.

Corvo could not go to sleep that night—the shrieking and thrashing witches in his mind didn’t let him.

He shot up from the cot and went over to his desk on which were scattered all the papers he’d brought from land that day. He sat down and diligently reread them all (much more carefully this time), and then once more, then dragged a hand down his face when words began to swim in front of his eyes. 

He needed Daud—Delilah’s coven was clearly powerful, if today was any indication. Nothing made sense, or perhaps that’s just how it seemed to his exhausted mind at the moment, but all the different thoughts battling for his attention at once demanded help in order to make sense of anything.

Fuck waiting. Fuck trying to be overly cautious. He’d waste all his time that way. 

He gathered the papers into a small stack and went back to the briefing room where Meagan was still drinking her coffee. He unceremoniously dropped the stack on the table in front of her before realizing that he should probably explain himself. 

Judging by the look Meagan gave him, she was of the same opinion.

Corvo sat down across from her and opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then rubbed at his beard. 

“I’ve been thinking—” he started, before clicking his tongue and deciding to just say it as was. He expected that Meagan would have heard of the man, at least by name. “I need to find Daud.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 👀 So that's the setup, I guess?! From this point on canon compliance is gonna pretty much fly out the window in regard to some things (I mean it already kinda did, oops). I'm (mostly) ignoring the events of the books because that's too much canon to juggle, but mixing and matching bits of info should be fun, so we'll see how it goes hahhhaha :'D Anyway, hope you enjoyed!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive the inconsistencies in length, but so far the chapters have been getting longer and longer and I really need to rein them in lmao

Billie stared at the Lord Protector. The Lord Protector stared back. 

Well, shit.

“Daud,” she repeated, slow and skeptical. Did she hear him right? “You want to find Daud.”

“Yes, I want to find Daud. I presume you know who that is.”

Billie almost scoffed in spite of herself. Oh, she knew. She knew better than anyone. 

She supposed it wasn’t that far-fetched, really—as far as she knew, Lord Attano had a right to seek him out. He seemed shaken enough after his first real meeting with the witches at Addermire that he told her about—as much as he tried not to show it, it was clear that the notion of facing enemies with powers similar to his, not to mention which he didn’t fully understand, bothered him. He must have felt something similar when having faced the Whalers all those years ago, Billie thought. She couldn’t blame him.

She narrowed her eye at him. “Why?”

“Because I heard that he knows things about Delilah that we don’t. And rumor has it he’s somewhere in Serkonos.”

So he _heard_. Billie wondered just how much longer the Lord Protector was going to try to hide his ties with the Void. (It didn’t matter that she already knew—Corvo was terrible at lying and that was a fact). Only the Outsider could have told him, the bastard— neither Daud nor the scattered Whalers would ever mention to anyone their involvement in what has transpired in Dunwall all those years ago. 

If only she could tell Corvo that the search was pointless, that she has already tried and failed—followed several different leads and watched them all dissolve into nothing, one after another. That note Thomas was kind enough to send her was still the only real indication that Daud was in Karnaca, and he claimed to have seen him two years ago. If she couldn’t find him, she thought, then anyone else’s chances were terribly slim.

Billie took in a thoughtful breath and leaned her head slightly to the side, taking a moment to study the Lord Protector’s face. He seemed serious enough about this. Determined, even. In the two weeks that she’d known Corvo, she could already gather that if he set out to do something, it would take quite a bit of effort to sway him. Any other job, and that trait of his might have made her hopeful. It was quite a shame that this was going to be a waste of time. 

Well, whatever. She’d play along.

“Fine.” She jerked her chin at the papers that he brought before her. “What’s all this, then?”

Corvo stayed silent for a moment, studying Billie in return. His stare made her uncomfortable—maybe she should have faked some crude reaction to his declaration. Maybe she should have exclaimed in shock at the wickedness of trying to find the murderer of an Empress he’d once sworn to protect—that’s what anyone would do, right? _Maybe, if they knew who the real murderer was_ , she then reminded herself. With the clearing of Corvo Attano’s name, no one knew for sure whose blade sliced into Jessamine Kaldwin—not as far as Meagan Foster was concerned. Sure, there were rumors. But the majority of the “searches for the truth” of the modern historians, as they liked to call themselves, ended with Hiram Burrows and his assumed network of nameless spies and cutthroats. Some lovers of conspiracies and fairy tales still chose to believe that Corvo Attano was a regicide that worked out an elaborate plan to rightfully condemn himself and then come out clean on top, taking the Empire into his hands with his own daughter for a puppet empress. In any case, all the different versions of the alleged murderer’s wanted posters have lost their credibility over the years, and those who suggested that the Knife of Dunwall was the culprit, those who claimed to have seen the Whalers on that day— well, their arguments too didn’t hold up for long.

Billie didn’t break Corvo’s eye contact and expectantly took a sip of her lukewarm coffee.

“These are notes and correspondence from the Overseers’ outpost in the Canal Plaza. Most of these were in Byrne’s office, so I figured they were important.” Billie turned her gaze to the papers, picked up the top one as she listened. “I wanted to see if I could find anything on— heresy. And such. Maybe some clue— some lead— I can’t make sense of any of it, it all sounds like random nonsense.”

Well, it seemed that way, at least. Billie leafed through the stack—notes on the Oracular Order, accounts of heretical artifacts, analyses of the Seven Strictures (those poor obsessed fanatics really had nothing better to do, huh?), analyses of different interpretations of the Void (ah—getting warmer), reports of gang activity… Everything that’s been seen before, nothing especially of note. A couple of letters from Byrne to his superiors looked curious, though—Billie put them aside for closer inspection. But first, she’d get some fresh hot coffee; she wasn’t intent on sleeping anytime soon anyway. 

She got up from her seat with a sigh. “I’ll look through these,” she said, “but I can’t promise anything.” Corvo gave a stiff nod at that, propping his head up with his hand. He looked tired. “You should get some sleep,” Billie pointed out.

Corvo shook his head, his eyes mostly blank as he stared somewhere ahead of him. Thinking, probably. “Can’t,” he replied, at which Billie gave a short huff. Clearly, rest was the only thing he needed right now, but she wasn’t about to start coddling him. 

“You want some coffee?” Though, coffee wasn’t the best idea for a man that couldn’t sleep, she realized after she offered. “Or tea?”

“Ah— tea would be good, thank you.”

Billie hummed in acknowledgment and went into the kitchen, soon returning with two steaming mugs in one hand. Well, (she handed Corvo his tea, sat back down and stretched), it looked like they had some work to do.

Half an hour or so later, her breath caught in her throat when she turned one of unsent letters over:

_Under the Duke, the streets here are overrun with cutthroats. Paolo and his gang grow bolder every day. There’s new sightings of the Eyeless as well—looks like they’re beginning to reappear._

The Eyeless.

Beginning to reappear.

Billie frantically skimmed over the rest of the letter— _shit_ , it had no details that she could have used. She sprung up, making the chair screech against the floor. Corvo looked up with a questioning frown, but she did not stay to explain and rushed to her cabin at once, threw back the lid of the trunk next to her desk and began to fumble inside for the necessary papers.

“What’s going on?” Corvo called after her, sounding both concerned and hopeful. “Found something?”

Billie ignored him for now, rummaging through old stacks and folders and— there. She flung the journal on the desk and turned back to the trunk to pull out a large map of Karnaca, marked in numerous points with red ink. It didn’t take her more than two seconds to flip the journal open to the right page. 

The page spread held all the previous sightings of the Eyeless she could get her hands on— there were only a few, none of which proved to be of any significance beyond a few fanatics here and there, waving bonecharms around and attracting dirty looks. The gang hasn’t been a concern for the city, not really—but, among other flimsy leads, their claims of their ties with black magic kept Billie’s eye on them at all times. 

That was, until they disappeared from her sight nearly a year ago. 

This time, however, the fact that Liam Byrne thought it important enough to mention the gang to the High Overseer himself spoke volumes. 

Billie stood over her desk, chewing wildly at her lip. There was something here. There had to be. She needed only to not lose track of it again.

And now she had help, too.

Only, that came with complications.

It seemed Corvo’s been keeping himself busy while Billie was rummaging her things—he was coming out of the kitchen with a newly steaming mug in his hand and a newly furrowed brow when she walked back into the briefing room.

“So?” he asked. “What is it?”

“The Eyeless,” Billie dropped the journal, the map, and some other papers on the table, “are a lead.” 

Corvo’s frown remained. “Who’re they?”

“A gang that claims to use black magic. They’ve made appearances before, but none have been documented like _this_.” She shoved her index finger into Byrne’s letter. “Did you hear any mentions of where they could be, other details, anything?”

Corvo kept looking at her but stood unmoving; a few seconds later, he narrowed his eyes. The look in them quickly turned from inquisitive to dangerously suspecting, assessing. “You’ve been watching them. Why?”

Oh well. There he went. 

Billie chewed on the inside of her cheek, then took a slow breath. She wanted her pipe.

Would it be too much to hope that Corvo Attano, who somehow convinced himself to find his lover’s murderer and then try to _work together_ with him, could also accept said murderer’s former accomplice?

“Lord Attano,” she began, then paused and sucked in some more air. Part of her had felt that this would have to come up sooner or later, but she never knew it would be under these circumstances. “Listen to me. I lied to you. My name is Billie Lurk.” She paused, in spite of herself. She didn’t plan this far ahead. 

She could see Corvo tensing up, just a little; now it was bound to get way worse for him. Despite all her attempts at finding Daud, outright stirring up her past was more difficult than she liked. And, well—she deserved that, anyway. “Fifteen years ago, I ran with a mercenary gang— I ran with the Whalers. With Daud. That’s why I’ve been watching the Eyeless—I’ve been looking for him for months.”

She wanted to fill up the following dreadful silence as fast as possible, but words sunk in her throat. Corvo’s hand tightened around the handle of his mug—she saw it clearly, even out of the corner of her eye. At least he wasn’t interrupting. Yet. 

“He pulled me up from the Dunwall slums when I had nothing, he took me in—” Fuck, this was hard to admit. Of course, she expected it was even harder to hear.

 _Void_. She ground her teeth, letting her gaze drop to the table as she tried to come up with the right words. Better to just rip the bandage off, she thought, just to come out and say it—she didn’t suppose one could sugarcoat the murder of an empress.

“Our last big job together, we were paid to...”

“Look me in the eyes.”

Billie raised her head slowly at the command. The man looked livid. His rage was a cold one, tightened jaw and white knuckles and restrained voice turned into a low growl. Words slow, like he was savoring every one and tried to make his interlocutor feel their full effect, torture them with the foreboding of the moment he’d finally snap. The blind contempt she could see in his eyes—she knew the look well—made her feel like she couldn’t move.

“Look me in the eyes when you say it,” he gritted out and raised his chin, barely but just enough to notice, then slowly set the mug on the table, never once breaking eye contact. At least he understood what she’d hidden from him—perhaps that’d make confessing to it a little easier. 

It didn’t. “I was there that day,” she finally squeezed out. Her voice, albeit unwavering as always, didn’t seem like her own.

Corvo simply stared and Billie thought she’d never seen so much disdain, anger, and sorrow arising on someone’s face all at once. It was saddening, really—he could tell himself that he could put the past behind him as much as he liked, but it seemed to be a different matter entirely when he had to actually meet with it face to face. Billie desperately wanted him to say something, _anything_ , but she couldn’t dare push him. He clearly needed time to process everything.

“You helped Daud kill Jessamine,” at last, he hissed through his teeth. An accusal, voiced mostly to solidify the thought in his mind. Perhaps he didn’t think he’d ever meet more than one person that wronged him thanks to Daud’s decisions. That he’d have to _tolerate_ more than one person like this.

He waited, and Billie gave a slow nod.

She knew anger, and it was apparent that Corvo wanted to scream, or hit something, or both. It took him great effort not to, and he dug his fists into the table until it looked painful and shut his eyes, hanging his head.

“I’ve lived a very long time wishing I could take that day back,” Billie tried, hoping to voice her regrets so that Corvo could simply hear them, at the very least. What he did with them, well, that was his business. “But I can’t. None of us could.”

“ _Us_ ,” he raised his voice, just slightly. “Who, the Whalers? Those monsters—?”

“They were my family,” unable to keep the offense out of her voice, she met his tone in kind. He would never understand, fine, but she wouldn’t let him diss the people that gave her a home. “ _Daud_ was my family. And we all regretted that job, I promise you.”

“Then why in the Void did he take it in the first place?”

“Because Burrows threatened us. Because he would send in the Overseers to raid the Flooded District if Daud hadn’t accepted—believe me, none of us wanted to kidnap a fucking kid right after killing her mother in front of her.” None of them wanted to make an orphan out of a child who they all saw a bit of themselves in. They all came up from nothing. They were all helpless, once. Weak. Billie gasped for air and swallowed, glaring at the Lord Protector who took her up on her challenge and glared back. She knew this was going to get personal, very much so—but for fuck’s sake, she wasn’t prepared to dig out her past for this man whom she barely owed anything. He was just another bystander on that day, just another victim— it had to be either Jessamine or them, and even though it turned out well for no one in the end, the fact that Billie regretted the job immensely didn’t mean that she wouldn’t make the same choice again out of sheer desperation. 

“I’m sorry.” The apology came out rougher than was probably appropriate, but she meant it. “I truly am.”

Corvo sat down and pressed on his sockets with the heels of his hands. He looked tired. 

Billie really needed her pipe.

*

They spent the next several minutes in silence. It felt like hours. Corvo stared at nothing in particular, all the ire gone from his eyes and replaced with... nothing, really. Billie finally lighted her pipe, leaning against the edge of the table and letting out small puffs of smoke that did wonders to soothe the nerves. 

At last, Corvo broke the silence first. “You know about Delilah, then.” 

Billie nodded. “Somewhat.” 

“And you told me _nothing_ —”

“I was coming to warn you,” she shot back, frustration seeping into her voice. “And I couldn’t have told you much, anyway.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I betrayed Daud before he went after Delilah.” She winced slightly and shook her head. “It’s— complicated.”

_“Why?”_

Corvo deserved answers, Outsider damn him— she knew that, but that didn’t make it any easier. A sigh escaped her chest. “After the job, Daud began to... wane. Or so I thought. Or chose to think. It was that moment when Delilah approached me—she sang the sweetest songs in my ear, told me that Daud was getting old, weak. That it was my time to take over the Whalers—I was his second, see. She spun all this crap about how the Whalers would become powerful if I was at their head, how her coven and us would join forces, how she would _help_ us. Whatever that meant. I’d say she bewitched me, only I was stupid enough to believe her without any hocus pocus required. She would have probably manipulated me and made us all into her slaves if I’d done as she bid—who knows.” Billie shrugged and puffed on her pipe, shooting Corvo a glance and finding him fairly placid, but clearly suspicious of what he was hearing. And why wouldn't he be—she was both an enemy _and_ a traitor in his eyes, by this point. With a sigh, she continued. “Then, well. I sold the Whalers out to the Overseers on her command. I’d thought they’d simply round us up, hold us hostage for a bit, just as a fear a tactic. That was the agreement. But no. They took us by surprise. The fuckers killed a lot of our men. I watched my friends being gutted to the screech of those fucking music boxes and I couldn’t believe what I’d done.” 

When she heard Corvo asking her to go on, Billie realized that she’d fallen silent. 

“Daud came back— the attack happened when he was out, and he managed to free those of us who were left alive and round up the Overseers. Then Delilah appeared. Told me to challenge him. I couldn’t, of course. And he let me go. I left and haven’t seen him since.”

That was it. She wouldn’t say anymore.

There was nothing else to say, anyway.

Corvo sat still, a grim look on his face. “This is... a lot to take in,” he gruffed.

Billie scoffed. “Tell me about it.” She looked at the multitude of papers scattered on the table. “Which brings us here. As I already said, I’ve been looking for Daud for months. I’ve given up on it, when the Eyeless disappeared without so much as a trace, but now you bring back this,” she pointed to Byrne’s letter once again. “And I think that’s worth looking into.”

Corvo was quiet for a few moments, and Billie couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “Alright,” he finally said, “I agree.” He turned his eyes to the map between them and studied it. “Can you narrow down where the Eyeless could be?”

Billie clicked her tongue, “That’s the thing, isn’t it. The good news is, they’re definitely in Karnaca, and—”

“...If Byrne heard about them then they must have been seen somewhere where The Abbey‘s thickest—”

“Exactly. Which leaves us with,” Billie set her pipe on the ashtray and grabbed a pencil, then began to circle districts on the map, “Campo Seta, the Cyria Gardens, and the Dust District. Three main Overseer enclaves.”

Corvo scratched his chin, following the movements of her hand with his eyes. “Batista? Aren’t the Howlers based there? We can safely cross that out, I’d say—gangs don’t like competition.”

Billie hummed in agreement, marking the paper. “...And there’s constantly a real sizable Grand Guard presence in the Gardens, so that’s not likely either.”

“Mhm. Campo Seta it is, then,” Corvo stood up and leaned over the map to get a closer look. “I didn’t see anything strange at the dockyards or near the outpost... Say,” he pointed to each of the small red circles Billie’d drawn in the previous months, “were the Eyeless always this scattered?”

“Yes, and in pretty small numbers, too,” she assured him. 

“Then if, as you say, this is the first time they’ve been acknowledged by Byrne, then their behavior must have changed.”

Billie nodded, frowning at the map, when—

“Shit,” she exclaimed, her eye widening. How did she not realize immediately? “The northern section has been abandoned for several years now!” 

Corvo raised an eyebrow at the detail. “...And if someone’s been snooping around there, obviously the Abbey would want to poke their nose in and find out what’s going on.” His lips stretched into a small anticipatory smile and he stepped back and placed his hands on his hips. He nodded to himself, then glanced at Billie as if to confirm his thoughts. “They must be huddled in there somewhere.”

Billie met his gaze and let out a loud breath, putting her pipe back between her teeth. Alright, (she marked it on the map), Northern Campo Seta it was. She could only hope they were right. 

She stared at the map for a minute and then shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t know if anything’s gonna come out of this, but... I’ve got a pretty good feeling that this might just be something.”

On the other side of the table, Corvo reached for his mug of (probably cold by now) tea. “Good,” he simply said with a bit of a rasp and gulped down the drink, then cleared his throat. “When are we doing this?“

“Sokolov first,” Billie interjected, squaring her shoulders and crossing her arms. Well, as well as she could, anyway. “Daud’s been gone fifteen years—he can be gone a little while longer. Anton, though... Can’t say the same about him. Need to get him out before Jindosh breaks the poor old man.”

Corvo rubbed the bridge of his nose and nodded. “Then I set out for the Clockwork Mansion in the morning.“ He placed his hands on the table and pursed his lips, as if in hesitation. “Mea— Billie.”

It was painfully clear that it was difficult for him to look at her straight on. But he held his own, and Billie almost admired him for it.

“I won’t ever forgive you for what you did,” he continued after a pause, voice gruff but quiet. “But maybe you’ve changed.” 

_People don’t change_ , Billie thought. And it didn’t sound like Corvo believed that statement, either. Not yet, in any case. But— if he meant that he trusted Billie to not put a knife to his back at the first opportunity, then he was correct.

Corvo was putting in the effort for this cause, lots of effort, and she held his gaze and gave a firm nod to validate his temporary trust in her. 

“You will save your daughter, Lord Attano,” she assured, and it was easy to will the strength into her voice. It must have been genuine. “And if you’ll have me, I’ll help you in any way I can.”

*

At first light, Billie dropped Corvo off at the Dockyards and went back to the _Dreadful Wale_ , very reluctant to leave the ship alone for too long with only Dr. Hypatia on board. The woman was harmless, but Billie didn’t know if her recent mental adventures had anything else in store. She could, of course, still have lasting effects of the poison inside her, but it was way too early to be sure of anything. Better to keep an eye on her, for now. In any case, Billie expected Corvo to be gone for some time—there was a reason people were afraid of Jindosh’s mansion, and it wouldn’t take a mere couple of hours to get Sokolov out from wherever the madman hid him.

Billie did not, for the life of her, expect to be struck with the sensation of her whole self being pulled apart as soon as she entered her cabin and closed the door behind her.

Her head spun and it felt like her body was getting warped, or maybe splintered— it didn’t hurt, not really, only she wanted badly to barf.

She knew this feeling. Oh, she knew it too well—vivid memories of kneeling on the floor of the training room and emptying the contents of her stomach with Daud standing over her and holding her lightly by the shoulder came rushing in: it was the first time he’d tried using his summoning powers on her. She’d had to adapt to it, she’d had to get her body and mind used to the power of the Void that, in the moment, felt like was forced on her. But she’d wanted it. She’d _needed_ to show Daud that she could take it, that she would learn and share his abilities and become strong and he would be proud of having taken her in— Void, she was only thirteen back then.

Clearly, her body fell out of practice in the past fifteen years because the only thing that kept her from fainting on the spot was the sudden rush of cold on her face and a brief ringing in her ears that made her clench her eye shut. When the following silence made her open it, she found herself in the blue, black, grey nothingness.

Well—fuck.

She sucked in a sharp breath and looked down at her feet—alright, she was standing on solid stone, at least. Black, jagged stone that was somehow suspended in… nothing?

Daud had told her about the Void, about this sickening, sunken feeling in the stomach, the cold, and the distant howling of dead whales. He’d talked about it with what sounded like disdain, but despite his attitude and the dreadful imagery, Billie had still always wanted to open her eyes one day to the blue, endless space. She’d waited and hoped, wondering when the Outsider would finally speak to her. Would finally deem her worthy.

She’d long since let go of those childhood dreams, of course, and she sure as shit didn’t expect to have dealings with the Void, or just the taste of the powers it granted, ever again.

But here she was.

“And here you are,” a young but methodical voice echoed her thoughts. “Billie Lurk.”

Yes, she supposed he looked exactly like Daud used to describe him. That did not, however, do much to prepare her for this meeting. 

“Outsider,” she said, the word soaked in caution and mistrust. His black eyes did wonders to unnerve, to put it mildly. “What’s all this? Why am I here?”

The god looked like he didn’t hear, or perhaps he simply chose to ignore her. “A Dunwall orphan. A smuggler. A ship captain. An assassin. A killer. You are many things, aren’t you, Billie Lurk?”

“What,” Billie gritted out, emphasizing every sharp sound, “do you want?”

She felt like she was being pierced right through with his empty stare. The Outsider held an imperious pause, then finally spoke. 

“I want to see where you go from here. You surprise me—willingly revealing your true identity to a man who hates you more than anyone ever could,” he leaned his head to the side. “But he saw something in you, didn’t he? A spark of hope, perhaps? Remorse? Or perhaps he only plans to use you and dispose of you afterwards, letting you out into the wild and then raining justice down on you when you least expect it?”

Billie didn’t suppose the Outsider expected her to try to answer any of his questions. He may as well have been talking to himself.

“I give you a gift,” he continued, and Billie gasped in shock as, for the first time in two years, she felt something in the empty space where her right forearm should be. Only, that space wasn’t empty anymore.

She looked down in horror at the black, sharp shards of Void stone that now somehow formed her right arm.

“What did you do to me?” she hissed, and then let out a cry as a momentary headache pierced her dead, right eye. The pain was immediately gone, but the foreign feeling of having _something there_ remained.

“I truly do hope you use these gifts wisely, Billie Lurk. I shall be watching.”

The Outsider became a puff of black smoke and was gone. 

Behind him, a bright vortex swirled and crackled, and Billie felt drawn to it, in spite of herself. It was fairly far away—the stone she stood on ended in just several steps and the next platform began after a sizable gap, one she couldn’t possibly jump over.

Her shard arm tingled, and she brought it up to her face with a grimace. Flexed her fingers, wiggled them a little. The hand pulled her towards the vortex, she could feel it—it bid her to clench it into a fist, to feel that rush that she always subconsciously craved—

She braced herself, feeling the hand buzz and tingle as she reached out and flexed her fingers fully and— nothing happened. 

Nothing but a jerky, distorted reflection of herself that appeared on the other side of the gap. 

Curious.

She made a fist again and gasped as her feet hit the next stone platform. 

_Fuck_ , it felt good.

She almost laughed—she really did miss the feel of black magic. Once the Void got ahold of someone, she figured, it never let go.

Billie displaced her way to the vortex and stepped through.

*

The _Dreadful Wale_ would (have to) be fine for a few hours alone with Dr. Hypatia after all, she told herself as she made her way back to the Campo Seta District on the skiff.

If the Outsider wanted her to play with his toys, so be it. If anything, it was confirmation that Daud was indeed nearby and she and Corvo were on the right track. And now, she’d be damned if she didn’t go to check out the playing field while she had the chance. Going in blindly to a job was never a good idea—a little scouting wouldn’t hurt. Aside from that, of course, Billie wanted to test and get used to her new appendage. 

She docked the skiff below the Acantilla Repair Station that hasn’t been used in years—just like the whole northern section of the district—and carefully made her way up the overgrown street.

It felt so good to run again.

It didn’t take long to stumble on a couple of talking guards.

“Captain says to find out what the Eyeless gang’s doing inside the Albarca.” Billie stilled behind the column that hid her from view, taking care to catch every single world.

Albarca. The disused public Albarca Baths.

“I know what they’re doing,” the second guard replied. “That place reeks of black magic! Did you see the people who went in there? Go after them, and they’ll curse your cod with pus blisters—if you’re lucky.”

“Ah, you and your superstitions. Don’t believe all that hocus pocus crap. A gang’s a gang. You should worry more about a knife in the back than some curse.”

“If you say so. But let’s still wait for the reinforcements.”

Reinforcements! Billie bit down on her lip. The damned Guard was planning to raid the place?

She decided she heard enough and began to make her way back—the sun was setting and Corvo would be done soon, she hoped. Considering, of course, that nothing went wrong—but somehow she didn’t think it would.

It was only now that, as she made her way back to the Repair Station, she paid notice to the layers and layers of old posters and advertisements on the walls. A handful of newly printed papers were pasted over them, all with the same exact text:

_CHAMPION CHALLENGE_  
_Test your mettle in a challenge brawl!_  
_Match wits and fists with the merciless Black Magic Brute and other champions of the pit_  
_Prize: 1 bonecharm of powerful effect_

Void—the Albarca Baths were used as an underground fighting ring, of all things. Billie scoffed, not really knowing whether to feel concerned or amused. Who knew? Perhaps the old man lost his wits and was fighting there.

The _Black Magic Brute_. She couldn’t suppress a grin at the corny name. That sounded like Daud alright. 

And if the Grand Guard was planning on raiding the baths, then they had to hurry.

*

Corvo was sitting on a block of concrete with Sokolov next to him, though the old man looked out cold. _Thank the Outsider_ —Anton looked alright. 

Corvo, on the other hand, looked angry.

“Where the fuck were you?” he hissed as Billie brought her skiff in to the platform and sprung up to help get Sokolov settled in. “Wh— _What in the Void happened to your arm and eye?!”_

_Hah._

“The Void… happened,” Billie nearly scoffed to herself. Corvo looked shaken, clearly unable to decide whether to ogle her black-shard arm or the sliver in her socket, flitting his eyes between the two. “Get in,” she waved him off, then pulled Sokolov into the skiff. Damn, he lost so much weight. “I’ll explain everything.”

She supposed it’s been a wicked couple of days for all three of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....so yeah....? :D


	4. Chapter 4

Sokolov’s condition made, mildly speaking, a pitiful sight. 

Corvo didn’t think he would ever have to see the genius like this—old and withered and weak and… not at all like he remembered. It was strange. It didn’t seem right.

“They tortured him,” Billie hissed in irritation when Corvo voiced his concerns about the state of Sokolov’s mind. “His body is covered with bruises. Give him time to recover, will you?”

The old man slept in his cabin, or maybe he was unconscious— Corvo couldn’t quite tell the difference anymore. His breathing was so thin that sometimes it seemed that the occasional incoherencies he mumbled were the only signs of life that remained.

*

“I can’t leave Anton like this,” Billie said the next morning. “He’s too weak. He needs me.”

Corvo fully understood her concerns, but time was a luxury they didn’t have much of. “Then I’ll go to Albarca by myself—”

“ _No._ ” They’ve touched on this subject last night; Corvo didn’t know why he thought Billie would change her mind. “I already told you that I need to be there. Besides, something tells me that you’ll have a much easier time bringing Daud to your side if I’m with you.” 

Corvo couldn’t disagree with that, though he could’ve sworn that he caught a glimpse of worry in Billie’s eye at that statement. Still, “You told me yourself that the Grand Guard has their sights set on the Eyeless, and I’m not even mentioning the Overseers anymore. We just can’t afford to sit around and wait.” 

“You don’t have to,” Alexandria Hypatia interjected from the kitchen, then showed up in the doorway with a steaming mug in her hands. “You can leave the Professor in my hands. He will be safe with me, I assure you.”

To everyone’s delight, Alexandria has been making a rapid recovery, to a point where she’d already informed that she was making arrangements with friends for her stay in the city, as it was too dangerous to go back to her apartment near Addermire. Corvo marveled at her professional optimism—she even told him that she was looking forward to seeing patients again.

The doctor looked into her mug, swirled it around for a bit and then met Corvo’s eyes before sliding her gaze over to Billie. That look was a fleeting one—Billie’s new appearance wasn’t something they explained to her all that well and last night Alexandria politely but firmly made clear that she wanted nothing to do with it. She exhibited the same attitude towards their new plans—that is, chose to stay completely uninvolved. _Whatever you need to do,_ she’d said, though not without a hint of distaste, _as long as the Duke falls_.

“He needs some continuous medical attention,” Alexandria went on. “It’s the least I can do—for him and for the both of you.” 

Corvo gave her a small nod and an appreciative smile and turned his head to gather Billie’s reaction, who stood, looking very conflicted, with her arms folded. She took a few moments to frown at the floor, then finally raised her eye with a tired sigh. “Alright,” she gave in, bringing up her flesh hand to rub at her temple. “I— thank you. Please, take care of him.”

Alexandria smiled at her, her features soft with understanding. “Of course. You needn’t worry.” 

Billie— _Meagan_ has said before that Sokolov meant a lot to her, but now her face held such genuine concern that Corvo couldn’t ignore it. Somehow, that bothered him.

 _“She has not always chosen her companions wisely,”_ The Heart whispered, distracting him from his thoughts. _“But she truly cares for Sokolov. I can feel it.”_

 _I can feel it too,_ Corvo mentally replied, following Billie with his eyes as she exited the room. It was a strange thing, sensing such strong compassion in a killer.

 _“You are looking for excuses to hate her,”_ the soft voice enveloped his mind again. _“Do you really wish to put such a burden on yourself?”_

How could he possibly not, Corvo thought. The thought ached. _How can I not hate the people that took you away?_

The Heart did not respond.

*

They decided to set out at nightfall. 

Billie rummaged in her trunk for her equipment—a short jacket, a voltaic gun, a sword. An old Whaler sword, Corvo noted. He’d never forget the look of those blades.

Then—an eyepatch and a long, black coat. 

“That’s quite the wardrobe,” Corvo said, leaning against the cabin’s doorframe. “You change your identity often?”

Billie only shot him a quick glare and went back to the trunk, straightening up a few moments later and throwing Corvo a dark bandana.

“You’re gonna have to leave the mask,” she jerked her chin at him. “It hides your face, but it’s way too distinct-looking. We might have to try to blend in, and those occult junkies will recognize it for sure.”

Corvo hummed at that, twisting the soft bandana in his hands. She had a point. 

“And I suppose it won’t be so easy for you to walk around in public now, huh.”

Billie let out a small sigh and lifted her black-shard arm, turning it this way and that. The occasional glossy edges amongst the mainly matte stone shimmered in the low light. “Yeah, it’s definitely not the most usual of prosthetics... Suppose it’s never too hot for gloves and overcoats.”

*

Riding in the skiff without the feeling of solid metal snug on his face made Corvo feel naked. The night was coming on rapidly, though, and shadows were trusted friends. They wouldn’t be spotted easily. 

The heat has gone down—the cold ocean wind made the ride that was way too long as it was much less than pleasant.

The silence didn’t help. Corvo chose to mend the situation.

“How did you use magic fifteen years ago?”

Billie turned her head to regard him. “Hm?”

“You weren’t Marked. So how did the Whalers do it?”

“Daud called it the... arcane bond,” Billie said slowly, as if struggling to remember. Corvo didn’t think she had any real difficulty with that. “We shared his powers through it. Well, some of them, at least.”

Corvo knitted his brow, squinting and blinking rapidly when the cold wind made his eyes sting. “How did he do that?”

“We didn’t know. I don’t think even Daud knew, it just... happened. Some of us were sensitive to his powers, others weren’t. Some were more sensitive than others. More... able.”

“And you were the most able?” 

Billie gently moved the tiller and gave Corvo a sidelong look. “Maybe.”

“You said you were his second-in-command.”

Another pause. “And what of it?”

“Why? Because you were the best fighter?... Because you had the highest kill count?” Even if he didn’t mean to sound sardonic, Corvo’s tone would have failed to communicate that. Billie’s shoulders tensed ever so slightly—just enough for him to notice and attempt to find a weakness to exploit. “Killing,” he drawled. “What a sweet thing to teach little kids from the streets. Daud must have been a wonderful leader. Illuminating, truly.

“Did the Whalers hold regular kill contests to see who was the best assassin? Is that how you earned your pay? Daud did... pay you, right?”

Billie narrowed her eye, the only new indication of her discomfort with the interrogation—or maybe she was simply running out of patience. “Pardon my bluntness, Lord Protector, but you ask an awful lot of questions.”

Corvo shifted his jaw and slowly ran his tongue over the top row of his teeth, trying and failing to read her expression. “I like to get to know the people I work with. Might come in handy now and again.”

“Ahh.” Billie gave a dramatic nod of mocked understanding and turned her attention back to steering, wordlessly stating that the conversation was over. Corvo shrugged—more a reaction to a new gust of wind rather than to a lack of response—and wrapped his arms tighter around himself as the waters continued to bluster overboard.

*

When the moon rose and shone through the clouds, they docked below the Acantilla. 

“Not the most hospitable place,” Corvo muttered as they made their way through the rail carriage station, sliding his eyes over the mossy, cracked stone of the walls and archways. The distant croaking of frogs and the ringing of cicadas seemed to be the only sounds this deserted area had to offer.

Billie adjusted the straps of her eyepatch. “No, I guess not. Hasn’t been in a while.”

“What happened here, anyway?”

“A lot of people moved south, to more industrial spots. There’s no fisheries in this part of the district—not a lot you can do, in terms of a trade. Now, most people you’ll find here are beggars, pseudo-spiritualists, and—” Billie made an abrupt stop and squinted at something in the distance, “guards.”

Two of which were talking under a streetlight, Corvo realized when he followed Billie’s eye with his.

“Better start making our way up,” Billie said and reached out towards the top of the nearby building with her hand. Corvo already blinked onto a balcony before she finished the sentence. The rest of the way he jumped, grabbing onto the roof’s edge and pulling himself up. 

He straightened up and turned around, raising an eyebrow at Billie who was still standing on the ground. “Right. You never did show me how your new trinket works.” 

She shrugged and flexed her fingers at the edge of the roof, and Corvo had to stumble back because the air on the spot where he stood suddenly warped itself into a torn, shaky representation of what he barely recognized as Billie. He frowned at the image, and huffed when it did nothing but distort itself further. 

“And? What’s this for?”

Billie smirked and turned around, taking several leisurely steps away from the building. Then, clenched her fist again and vanished, materializing right in front of Corvo in the exact spot where the distorted image had been. He realized that he was probably staring because Billie dipped into a mockery of a curtsy, with the same smirk still playing on her lips. 

“Happy now, Your Grace?”

Corvo snorted, trying to tell himself that this definitely was _not_ one of the most useful things he has ever seen. Still, he couldn’t help but start poking holes in it. 

“It’s slow. You’d be losing precious seconds if you needed to immediately go in one direction, as, you know, most of the time.”

Billie made a face like she was trying very hard not to groan. Nonetheless, she very quickly flexed her fingers twice and, with barely any time for the image-marker to appear, emerged from thin air several meters away. “See?” she said. “Practically instant.”

“ _Practically_ is not absolutely.”

“Oh, give it up.”

Corvo couldn’t suppress a tiny smirk of his own as they began to make their way up the street, taking care to not make any unnecessary noise on the tiling. After some time a few people came into view, loitering near the main road, talking or smoking. Corvo clicked his tongue in annoyance when he brought his hand up to his temple and found empty space instead of the usual lens adjustment rings; still, the people were standing close enough to another working streetlight for him to make out that they all looked largely the same—dressed in ragged grey jumpsuits, their heads shaven.

“That’s the Eyeless,” Billie said before Corvo could think it. “Lots of them in the low ranks look like that. Shave their hair in service of the Outsider, get a specific tattoo—all as one and all that bullshit. Cultist wannabes—what can you expect of them.” 

“They don’t look all that special to me,” Corvo said. 

“And they’re not. Not at first glance, at least. They’re generally harmless, won’t attack you on the street like Hatters or Dead Eels. They do, however, know how to carve bonecharms better than your average street rat, from what I’ve se— _fuck!”_

She ducked down and displaced quickly towards the nearest chimney, crouching behind it. Corvo followed right after, frowning at her when they were safe behind cover. 

“What’d you see?” he whispered, blinking hard to look with his Dark Vision and immediately squinting when a bright yellow silhouette burned itself into the back of his eyelids. The quivering shape formed a woman who was crouching on the opposite side of the street. Crouching on a roof. Corvo swore under his breath.

“What I certainly did not expect here is damned witches,” Billie hissed. Corvo had to agree.

“There’s probably more where that one came from,” he gritted out, remembering how he let himself be caught off guard at Addermire. He suppressed the urge to spit on the ground in disdain.

“You bet there is. Witches don’t walk alone.”

Corvo pressed his lips together and leaned out from behind the chimney—the task proved useless, as there was no way to make out any details at such a distance. In the next moment he ardently wished for his mask with the built-in spyglass, as the witch instantly dissolved into the dark and there was no way to visually follow after her.

“Do you think we’re being watched?” he whispered.

“Don’t know. But I don’t think she noticed us,” Billie replied. _And if she did, she didn’t show it_. “But if she did, I’d be surprised if they didn’t jump out all at once in the next minute or so.” 

Corvo clicked his tongue in disapproval of the whole situation and followed Billie as she displaced onto the next building’s balcony and carefully stepped into the living room of one of the many abandoned apartments. 

“I don’t like this,” Corvo said as soon as they made sure they were out of anyone’s sight. “I don’t like this at all.”

The three witches at Addermire Institute were there for a reason—it was natural, he thought, for Delilah to send agents to guard Grim Alex. What he didn’t know is for how long they were situated there. Has Delilah had her eyes on the Crown Killer at all times? Or was she forced to pay more attention ever since Corvo escaped from Dunwall Tower, knowing that he would likely go after her and her associates? How did she communicate with her coven in Karnaca so quickly?

Was Delilah watching him? Did she somehow know what his next steps were? 

If so, why weren’t there any witches in the Clockwork Mansion?

“They’re guarding something,” Billie’s hushed voice pulled him out of the musings that managed to rile him up in a mere couple of seconds. Delilah’s tricks were really starting to get on his nerves, and this was only his second encounter with the coven. “Guarding some _one_.”

Corvo grimaced, catching on to her train of thought. “Daud.”

Billie swore and began to pace around the room. 

If anything, the witches’ presence only confirmed the need to get Daud out of whatever hole he’s dug himself into, Corvo reasoned. The thought was growing more and more on him—the idea of hurting, worrying Delilah in any way he could was satisfying to no end. 

“We’ve got to move,” he said after a minute, then took a cautious look out the window. Nothing unusual, from where he stood. “But we need to be careful,—”

“No shit.”

“—I’d rather have the element of surprise this time.” Corvo loaded his crossbow just in case—regular bolts—and blinked up onto the roof from the same balcony they had entered from. The rooftops didn’t feel so safe anymore, he thought, remembering with an internal frown the time he walked into an ambush by a few Whalers in Dunwall’s Distillery District. The idea of losing the advantage of the supernatural and being forced to fight on balanced scales, especially when it turned into a game of cat and mouse where one was trying to out trick the other quickly became less and less exciting (and it’s not like it ever has been in the first place). _Damn_ —he really wished he had his mask on, at least; being able to scout far ahead would have been a great help.

“You know, Billie, my eyesight isn’t as good as it once was.”

“Oh?”

“And if we miss a witch or two and get jumped from behind because I couldn’t magnify my view, you’ll be the one at fault.”

Billie snorted. “Aw. The great Corvo Attano is getting old. Who would’ve thought.”

Corvo wondered why he even bothered talking to this woman anymore. 

“Better use your Void sight, then,” she gibed. 

“That’s not the point—”

“Don’t worry, Your Grace,” he nearly rolled his eyes when she continued without bothering to hide the mockery in her hushed voice. “I’ll protect you.”

“Then you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not inclined to feel particularly safe.” 

A light click of her tongue: “Well, then I suppose you’ll have to make do.”

It took them several minutes of creeping in silence before Billie informed that they needed to start making their way further north towards the bathhouse, which meant crossing onto the other side of the street.

Which, all things considered, did not seem like the best idea, but was the only option they had.

“We won’t make a transversal that far,” Corvo thought out loud. “I don’t like going on the ground, but it seems that we have to.” 

“Just keep to the bushes.”

Corvo looked through the Void and, when he was sure no one was around, blinked down into the tall grass. Thankfully, this part of the area was fully dark so he didn’t feel too out in the open as he made his way across, with Billie following suit. 

It wasn’t long, however, before a faint _poof_ resounding somewhere above made him freeze behind a heap of rotting planks. 

Dark Vision didn’t help as the witch was gone before she was even noticed, and Corvo deeply regretted not knowing whether it was a coincidence, or if they were being blatantly followed. 

“We need to move,” Billie’s barely audible but agitated whisper echoed his worries. “I have no idea how many of them there are.”

If they had the luxury of appropriate time for conversation, Corvo would have pointed out the obviousness of the statement. The fact that he shared the concern, however, only put him more on edge. 

He scanned the surroundings once again and, finding no one around, blinked up onto a lopsided fire escape several meters ahead. The dim greenish lights he could now see in the distance, he had to admit, looked somewhat welcoming. 

“Is that the bathhouse?” He asked quietly, knowing that Billie must be somewhere nearby. The affirmative answer came from somewhere behind. 

Good. At least they were close.

*

“Let’s hope this works,” Billie whispered as they crouched on a ledge of a pawn shop, overlooking the Albarca’s front courtyard. Not a lot of people were outside, which made the task of passing through infinitely easier.

Or harder, depending on the point of view. 

The fact remained that they had no better option than to straight up walk in the front doors. They made their way down onto a patch of dirt behind a thick bush, then Billie stood up and adjusted her coat, tugging on the long sleeves and completely hiding her black-shard arm from view. Corvo made one last scan around to make sure they weren’t followed, and went after Billie towards the bathhouse, matching her fairly leisurely pace.

“…don’t waste coin on Duff’s whalebone gewgaws,” some woman was nagging her burly companion near the entrance. “They don’t do squat. Want your vitals stirred? Get some scarlet nightshade ointment. Rub it on your chest before the match. You’ll see.”

Corvo wrinkled his nose under his bandana at the imagery. Clearly, these people had nothing to do. 

Some other lady sat on the cement steps, mumbling excitedly to herself and generally giving no indication of being sane.

To Corvo’s surprise, they attracted no excessive attention as they walked into the building and, in order to keep it that way, he had to refrain from exhibiting any reaction when his gaze fell on a pile of corpses wrapped in body bags by the main doors.

“What was it that you said?” he muttered, keeping his voice down and eyeing the interior with aversive suspicion. “Generally harmless?” 

Billie only raised an eyebrow. “I never said I knew what exactly they were doing in here.”

Corvo was frowning at the smears of blood—both dried and fresh—on the floor that left a trail on the stairs as they made their way down into what he assumed was the main hall, when—

“Outsider’s eyes!” Billie hissed as soon as they entered the room, in which the lights from the projectors were bright enough to make Corvo squint in order to adjust. As soon as he did, he found himself staring at the floor where a sheet of thick, woven wire and several metal plates fully covered a three or so meters-deep pit. “Daud! They’re making him fight?”

The Knife of Dunwall was, after all, in a literal hole in the ground. Corvo would have laughed at the irony if the scene didn’t make him grimace with a mixture of confusion and pity. 

Daud—Corvo could barely recognize him from this angle but he trusted Billie’s judgment—was strapped into a metal chair, motionless, but for the faintest indications of labored breathing. His eyes were closed, or maybe rolled back—Corvo couldn’t tell. A multitude of bright sparks spanning the wire net’s entire surface crackled and sizzled above him without pause. 

“We have to get him out of there.” There was a coldness in Billie’s voice Corvo hasn’t heard before. A quiet sort of awakening rage. 

That was the exact moment when one of the Eyeless brutes climbed down into the pit through a small opening and approached the prisoner in a lazy manner before leaning over him. Daud only turned his head away, just barely—it looked like any and all movement was significantly restrained.

“The Black Magic Brute, eh? You don’t look so tough,” the man grunted with mockery and landed an ostentatious kick on the foot of the chair. Corvo furrowed his brow. A show, it looked like, for the new spectators. A demonstration of the club’s favorite toy. The gang had appeared to be very prideful of the Black Magic Brute’s contribution to the fighting ring, if all the posters and whispers in the streets were any indication; the reality, as he could now see, was a bit bleaker than that. 

“Look at you. Trapped like a hound in the pits. Hoping your masters will throw you a bonecharm.” 

Corvo took a deep breath and tightened his jaw, tearing his eyes away from the cage in the floor and taking in the scene around him in all its glory. The room held quite the number of people—the Eyeless were standing around talking or, in the main, training in the ring or at the punching bags secured on stands along the walls. The Black Magic Brute and the preparation for the next fight was, of course, the hot topic of the conversation. Corvo arched an eyebrow—in his experience, gangs generally preferred to fight other gangs and not one another in the ranks. Though the pile of bodies by the main doors made sense now, seeing as the Eyeless’ member count likely dropped rapidly every time they held a match night. 

The large scoreboard hanging above the ring only confirmed that assumption.

“Daud’s _never_ lost a fight,” Billie growled behind him, evidently eyeing the same thing. 

The Black Magic Brute held first place, by far: zero losses and seventy-three wins. 

Corvo wondered how many, if not all, of those seventy-three died in that ring.

Next to the scoreboard hung what he recognized as a print of Sokolov’s rendition of the Outsider, painted a couple of decades ago—the rich dark clothing was the only element that was somewhat faithful to reality, as the man took up most of the painting and his face was smudged out. Corvo has always found some appeal in this portrayal, in this eerie, dehumanized figure against the backdrop of a purple expanse. 

He made eye contact with Billie who has been busy examining a small stand attached to the device that, assumingely (or hopefully, rather) controlled the restraints of the cage. He approached and leaned over her shoulder, skimming over the piece of paper pinned to the surface.

He grimaced again, feeling the sudden rush of anger that the information summoned. The device was a power suppressor. 

Just like a certain _Jeanette Lee_ who, according to the note, forbade anyone to turn off the machine, Corvo did not know how the device worked, but he could only imagine the amounts of pain one had to go through to endure the nonstop restraint of their supernatural powers. The Overseers’ music boxes were the stuff of nightmares for the Marked and the sensitive; the metallic screeching of their melody was tuned to a specific frequency that threatened to crack the skull in two and blurred the vision and rattled the teeth—prolonged exposure would surely drive many insane, in a literal sense. Corvo didn’t know how this particular technology operated, but he presumed that any possible way of suppressing _heresy_ was not for the weak-minded. He wouldn’t wish this kind of torture on anyone.

…Except, perhaps, Delilah. 

Corvo had to push on the back of his teeth with his tongue to try to banish the phantom ache in his gums. 

“Any ideas on how to turn this thing off?” he growled, his voice threaded with the disgust he harbored for every single Eyeless in that moment.

“This little door—” Billie lifted the corner of the paper to motion at the glass shutter it covered. She sounded livid. “—needs a key. There’s a lever underneath.”

“You think this… Jeanette Lee can help?”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Billie raised her head to examine the second floor where ledges and pipes circled the perimeter and provided a walkway towards multiple doors. “I heard someone say she’s upstairs.”

Corvo was already heading towards the stairway. “Then I hope she won’t mind if we pay her a visit.”

*

Jeanette Lee minded.

She didn’t get much of a chance to protest, however, as Billie’s voltaic bolt pierced her skull mere seconds into their meeting and her body was thrown into the pen with the hounds she so happily kept hungry for the fights.

Corvo didn’t even think to object.

*

The screams of the fleeing Eyeless were cut short as their heads were collectively severed in less than a single second before hitting the floor. 

With a sonorous sound of a transversal, the Knife of Dunwall materialized on top of the wire net of his cage.

Corvo forgot to breathe as he stared, in an astonished sort of horror, at the figure of a man who once upon a time broke his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy. Here we are, I guess :^ )
> 
> (Wow, remember how Daud fucking slaughtered everyone in a second. What an icon)


	5. Chapter 5

He looked different.

Corvo didn’t know _how_ he had expected Daud to look, since he knew full well that it was unreasonable to expect anything at all—but still, the glaring differences between the image in his mind and the actuality before him took him by surprise with the suddenly obvious fact that this man has been living his own separate life for fifteen whole years. Somehow, that suddenly obvious fact wasn’t very easy to process.

His hair has turned fully grey and his skin has paled with age and captivity’s exhaustion, accentuating the shadows under his eyes. His clothes were different, much different—the lack of a characteristically long coat made an entirely new silhouette that, despite the overall resemblance, gave the impression of an entirely new man. Although, the visibly tough leathers were of familiar red and brown colors, albeit the much darker tones. At first glance, the only things remaining from the time of the Whalers were the length and (though slightly messy, currently) style of his hair, the gloves on his hands, and that same long scar trailing down the side of his face.

At a closer look, however, Corvo decided despite compiling every new detail into a list in his mind, that Daud did not look all that different after all. Mostly just older— at least, that’s what he told himself. 

As soon as the immediate threat of the Eyeless was gone—as soon as he himself eradicated it, rather—Daud swayed on his feet, the lone sound of his hoarse, heavy breathing filling the room. No one moved as he collected himself, seemingly adjusting to what Corvo imagined to be the welcome sensation of being free of the cycle of renewing excruciation, now left only with the pain that would linger for a time and then pass. At last, he took a loud gulp of air and slowly raised his head, wincing and then blinking his eyes into awareness.

Corvo stood a good distance away to the side and Billie, unmoving but for the quick rises of her chest with shallow breaths, was the first thing to come into his field of view.

A single, small word was more than enough—with their last meeting’s exchange imprinted forever into his memory, Corvo would recognize that gravelly voice anywhere.

“Lurk.”

Billie stared at her former mentor, eye wide, in obvious inability to decide whether to be relieved or terrified for the fact that Daud immediately recognized her after all these years. 

After a moment’s hesitation, a rasp cracked her voice. 

“Yes.”

They stood and regarded each other in silence and, under different circumstances, Corvo could have felt that he was intruding on a private moment.

“Billie Lurk,” Daud rasped once again, notes of wonder seeping into his voice as his expression changed from that of suspicion to uncomprehending curiosity and—dare Corvo call it that—some form of relief. “How… What are you doing here?”

“Getting you out,” the words were breathy as Billie finally allowed herself to close the distance between them and then tentatively placed her hands on Daud’s upper arms, giving him a full glance-over.

“So you did. I don’t know how you found me, but—” his own cough cut him off—a raucous, painful sound—but he collected himself and frowned at Billie’s eyepatch, seemingly deciding to refrain from asking questions, at least for the moment. That changed, however, when he caught a glimpse of Billie’s right arm at his shoulder and the suspicion returned to his face in an instant as he took her by the wrist. “What— what is this?”

Billie took a gulp of air. “The Outsider— did this,” she said, eyeing Daud’s face and trying to gauge his reaction, then pushed up her sleeve to allow him a better look. She looked uncertain then, almost vulnerable—like a student waiting to get scolded for getting in trouble. “...I didn’t ask for it.” 

“He took your arm,” the reply came in the form of a low growl. His mouth twisted into a grimace. “The bastard ran out of Marks to throw around?”

“No! No, my arm was already gone—” Billie tried to lift her arms but Daud was still holding on to her right wrist so she pulled off her eyepatch with only her left hand. She spoke before Daud thought to interrupt. “And so was my eye. He— He replaced them, just like that. He didn’t ask.”

Daud frowned at the sliver of Void stone that glowed a dull red where Billie’s right eye should have been, then scoffed with disdain. “Of course not. He never does. Just takes and gives and does whatever he damn wants.”

Billie sighed, chewed briefly on her cheek. “I can fight again now, Daud. My one arm kept me chained to my boat for the past three years—no more.” 

“What happened?”

She shrugged and jerked her head, as if to say that it was a long story. “A run-in with the Guard.”

Daud seemed content enough to leave it at that for the moment, but searched her gaze nonetheless. “When you left I thought you’d at least be free of the Void’s trickery.”

“I thought so, too.”

The room fell into silence again. It was painfully clear that the both of them resisted the urge to say more—or maybe they were just trying and failing to find the right words.

“Daud, I—”

“Shh.” He lightly pushed her hand down, and, under different circumstances, Corvo could have caught a hint of gentleness in his rough voice. “No need.”

A ghost of a bittersweet smile crossed her features before her eye flitted to Corvo’s for the briefest of seconds—of which Daud took note. He cringed as he rolled his neck, then turned his head to follow the trace of Billie’s fleeting glance and Corvo finally felt the weight of his assessing eyes.

Corvo held his stare for a long moment, then tugged his bandana down to let it hang around his neck. Daud’s brow knitted with immediate recognition.

“Lurk, what in the Void are you doing with the Royal Protector?”

Corvo bit out the answer before Billie had a chance to. “Helping me find you.” 

A long pause, full of distrust and suspicion. Then, at last— “Why?”

Somehow, Corvo wasn’t all that surprised that getting Daud out of a literal torture chamber didn’t warrant his instant cooperation.

Perhaps he should have started with some sort of explanation, but the years of bitterness and building up prejudice took the upper hand and began to spill out. “Because. You’ll be coming with us.”

Looking completely unconvinced, Daud cocked his head very slightly to the side, his scrutiny a challenge in its own right. “Really?”

“Daud, I’ve got a ship,” Billie interjected, but did not succeed in tearing his eyes away from Corvo’s. “We need to move, it’s not safe here—we can all talk later.”

Corvo felt the following question was addressed to him. “Talk about what?”

“About the current situation,” he elaborated. “I presume you’ve heard.”

Daud held another pause, as if trying to take control of the conversation’s flow. “And what situation is that?”

Corvo held a pause of his own in return. “The coup.”

“Ah,” Daud nodded, the disinterest evident in the curt motion. “And?”

Any words and phrases along the lines of _I need your help_ got stuck in Corvo’s throat and refused to come out. Though, a tiny voice in the depths of his conscience whispered, he wasn’t trying very hard to make it so.

“Your old friend Delilah is being a major nuisance,” he said instead.

“My old friend?” The question was voiced more as a statement, in a tone that told Corvo that Daud knew exactly what was going on. It was only a matter of time before he pulled it out of him, Corvo thought.

“Oh, yes,” he told him.

Daud had the gall to look him straight in the eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he deadpanned.

Corvo resisted the urge to snarl. Fine—if he wanted to play, so be it.

“Here’s the thing, _Knife._ ” There was more venom in his voice than was planned. “You can come with me and help me bring down Delilah, or I can strap you back to that chair and switch that little lever on and then leave you here.” He’d do nothing of the sort—he’s come this far and the only way he was going to leave this place was with Daud in tow, whether the man liked it or not. But decades spent at court trained his every voiced intention to sound convincing. He ignored the glare that Billie scalded him with and continued before she could interject. “Only, there won’t be anyone here to let you out once in a while,” he threw a casual glance around the room, “seeing as you slaughtered everyone with any such intent.”

The tension only grew with each second that the two tried to drill holes in the other’s skull with their eyes. Finally, Daud let out a low hum.

“The Corvo Attano I remember didn’t bother with making petty threats and just got things done instead. You’ve gone soft.”

Corvo shrugged. “Or maybe more diplomatic—however you want to look at it. I’m simply giving you a choice.” Daud’s figure became just a little bit sharper as Corvo narrowed his eyes at him. “And don’t try to pretend like you know me.”

“Oh, I would never. But tell me, how exactly do you intend to force me back down there?”

“If you just come along quietly, I won’t have to.”

Daud huffed. “Unfortunately, I don’t see how any of this applies to me. The Empire has always been your responsibility, no? I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do if the Royal Protector fails at his job.” _Again,_ was left unsaid.

Corvo took a steadying breath, intent on gaining the upper hand, when Billie cut in front of him. “Both of you, shut up,” she hissed, but Corvo did not plan on backing off and ignored her.

“Don’t you worry,” he picked up, voice dangerously low, eyes fixed on Daud’s. “It’s all under control.” It wasn’t. “But, see—you have some information I need, and you’d be wise to share if you don’t want me to decide that granting you your life was a mistake after a—”

 _”I said, shut the fuck up!”_ Billie snapped, the sharp whisper cutting into the exchange with perfect clarity. “Someone’s here!”

Corvo continued to glare at Daud and Daud continued to glare at Corvo as the silence of the bathhouse was pierced by the echoes of footsteps that resonated somewhere above.

“Aren’t the streets feeling safer already?” a man boasted. The sound came from the direction of the entrance.

The reply was instantaneous. “We’ll probably get a medal for this.”

“That was too easy. Them Eyeless can’t fight for shi—”

Then—a sharp slicing sound, the guard’s words turned into incoherent gurgling, two dull thuds, and the clicking of several pairs of heels on the tile floor in place of the previous footsteps.

Billie reached into her coat to slowly pull out her sword. “About damn time,” she muttered, then turned to Daud. “How’re you holding up?”

Daud’s eyes were now fixed on the staircase that led to the main doors. “Fine.”

“Can you fight?” she asked. Considering what he knew of Daud’s abilities, Corvo thought that the question was completely unnecessary.

“I said, I’m fine.”

Billie reached into her coat once again and pulled out _another_ blade—this one Corvo recognized as a Grand Guard sword—and handed it to Daud. Corvo didn’t have time nor a mind to be vexed with the fact that Billie’s brought a weapon for Daud unbeknownst to him and he turned his attention back to the witches who’ve finally flocked to the commotion. He could only catch a glimpse with his Dark Vision before they dispersed in the air into different directions, but it was enough to tell him that there were at least five of them. He turned around and eyed the balcony opposite of the Outsider’s portrait, keeping his ears open for the sounds of any sloppy missteps.

“We’ll continue this later,” he quietly but gruffly threw over his shoulder and blinked up, balancing on the railing and looking through the Void for any signs of approaching witches. In an instant, his own sword lay unfolded in the snug grip of his hand as the Dark Vision’s pulse rippled ever so slightly on the distant left—a representation of the sound of a witch’s transversal, he assumed. She must have materialized somewhere out of the pulses’ range because, once again, he saw nothing.

Turning his head to regard his associates and assess their positions, Corvo saw the same vigilant anticipation in Billie and Daud’s crouched, predatory stances—they had also made their way to higher ground, keeping out of sight on top of the pipes against the wall or up on a railing a bit farther away, respectively.

A few minutes passed and no one moved a muscle, and Corvo was trying to predict when exactly his legs would start cramping up, when a single yellow silhouette of a witch popped into view as its owner appeared effectively out of nowhere and stepped onto the floor. She made an effort, it seemed, to not look up as she loitered—a dead giveaway that she knew the three above her were watching her like vultures. 

If this was an attempt to lure one of them to jump down on top of her and then get immediately ambushed by the rest, Corvo thought it was pitiful.

He pulled out his crossbow and the witch fell down lifelessly a second later, bleeding out from the head.

He never did get a chance to use the crossbow at Addermire, which, he supposed, gave the coven no reason to think that he _had_ a ranged weapon in the first place. Still, he thought, they should have been more careful with such assumptions, should have been prepared for any situation—he hoped this witch’s sacrifice would make them draw the right conclusions, for their sakes. 

Evidently, they didn’t take too kindly to it, because as soon as the oozing out blood reached the wire sheet and began to drip onto the bottom of the pit, the bathhouse was filled with a shrill, ringing wail.

“That’s a bit of a delayed reaction, I’d say,” Billie pointed out as the rest—at least four, five, six—of the witches finally began appearing on the floor and dispersed throughout the room, leaving behind clouds of ashy particles that dissolved before reaching the ground. 

As soon as a lucky witch transversed out of the way of his second crossbow bolt, Corvo decided it was time to dirty his hands. 

He pivoted when he felt a sharp gust of air behind him and blinked out of the way of a blade that stabbed the empty space where he had just been. He didn’t give the witch any time to react—the momentum of her attack let him pop up behind her and slit her throat, all in a sequence of few smooth seconds. He let her drop to the floor and made sure there wasn’t anyone else in the close vicinity, then quickly climbed onto the railing once again to take in the entire room. 

Billie (her movements were precise but just a tad flamboyant—Corvo couldn’t repress a ghost of a smirk at that, noting her enjoyment in the activity she has undoubtedly missed, be it for the recent lack of black magic or her very arm, or both) has made her way down and was currently sliding into an unassuming witch whose attention was fixed on Daud perched up on a railing. Knocked over by Billie right after managing to shoot a barrage of red pellets into him, the witch fell and was soon done for. Daud easily blinked out of the pellets’ way in the same moment and pushed off the railing, then landed right on another witch’s upper back, slamming her into the floor with his weight and not even bothering to use his sword to finish her as her neck snapped under the force of the enhanced jump. It seemed he didn’t even need to look where his next target was because he instantly turned around and reached out to grab onto the air with his left hand, tethering to himself another one that only recently appeared on top of the pipes under the ceiling. She screeched as he pulled her towards him through the air, and in the next instant the scream died in her throat as she was impaled on his readied blade and then carelessly thrown aside.

A witch that appeared on his right made Corvo bring his attention back to the moment and he winced to himself when he almost missed a parry. He’d have to get used to this new surreal sensation of witnessing other Void-touched fighters at work, he thought with self-reproach, or else he was bound to be distracted when it counted. It was one thing to employ his own supernatural abilities and heightened acrobatic reflexes, but it was another to observe it being done from the outside.

Corvo had to admit to the tiniest bit of disappointment he felt for the lack of spectacle like the one Daud exhibited in the first few seconds of his freedom, but he supposed that was only a one-time thing—perhaps some sort of uncontrollable release of all the black magic that was suppressed for so long. It was gruesome, yes, even animalistic in its unrestrained fury—but he would never forget the stab of pure, euphoric shock it made him feel in that moment. 

The lack of instantaneous carnage, however, did not inhibit him from marveling at the fluidity of Daud’s every motion—the kind of unconscious precision that allowed for looseness from years of experience and made his movements look like a carefully practiced sequence without a single mistake, not a single step out of place. One would never think he‘s been restrained and tortured mere minutes prior to this.

If Corvo wasn’t preoccupied at the moment, he wouldn’t have minded stopping and staring. 

But after letting another body fall to his feet he left the balcony and blinked into the center of the bloodied fighting ring, after which his eyes caught on the betting desk area and Billie’s displacement marker in front of the closed door of the registry.

“Lord Attano,” there was a taunting glee in Billie’s voice when she appeared a moment later, out of nowhere, in the marked spot. “I’d say being able to transverse through walls makes up for lack of speed well enough, don’t you think?”

There wasn’t enough time to process what he’d just seen as one of the couple of remaining witches screeched into his ear and rematerialized behind him, but Corvo blinked to the other side of the ring and took a free second to shoot Billie a pointed scowl. The witch screamed again and dropped down when a voltaic bolt pierced her temple a moment later.

Daud eyed them with fleeting curiosity before ducking and turning around to grab the (seemingly) last witch, who also appeared behind him in a desperate outburst, by the neck.

As her last, hoarse yelps died down when she was stabbed in the stomach, the Albarca bathhouse was one again submerged into silence.

Corvo glanced around with Dark Vision and climbed out of the boxing ring when he was sure that everything was clear. After all the shrieking, the quiet felt eerie.

He slid his gaze over all the carnage on the floor and grimaced. How many more witches would they have to gut before they got to Delilah?

Billie approached from her side of the room, wiping wet splatters of blood off her cheekbone with the back of her hand.

“Daud.” The determination was clear in her voice. “We have a ship. Come with us.” She gave him a long, serious look. “I know you have nowhere to go— I can tell.”

Daud’s eyes met hers and he lifted his chin slightly before leaning his sword against the suppressor device’s station. Then, he cast his gaze down to his hands and began to rub and massage his wrists.

It seemed Billie took his silence as a yes, because she gave one last glance around the room and started towards the exit.

Corvo sighed—from slight strain in his muscles or perhaps relief, or both, he didn’t know—and slowly walked over to stand beside Daud. 

Strange. 

Here they were, at last.

“I thought you said you were done with killing,” Corvo grunted, expecting to hear in return some snide remark like _just as you were?_ or _you’re a fine one to talk,_ or something else along those lines.

Instead, Daud reached into his jacket’s inner breast pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, then began to diligently and carefully clean the bloody grime off his blade.

“I lied,” he said.

*

The journey back to the ship was mostly silent as no one out of the three seemed to know how to begin the process of catching up, but there was wordless agreement that an hour or so-long boat ride was definitely not the place to start.

By the time they got back to the _Dreadful Wale_ the sun was starting to rise and sleep was the only thing Corvo cared about.

He needed to rest. Everything would be fine. Daud wouldn’t go anywhere and would still be here on the ship in a few hours’ time.

Right?

Right, he told himself. It was a start. He found him.

 _They_ found him.

With the familiar doubts clawing at him despite the self-assurances, he knew that the only way to shut his overworked mind up was to force himself into sleep. Still—the idea that Daud was now (seemingly, begrudgingly) on his side was so alien it didn’t seem real. 

_What am I doing, Jess?_

The Heart was silent. 

Corvo couldn’t blame her.

*

The fact that Sokolov was already up on his feet was a surprise—both in terms of the early hour as well as his condition.

“Back already?” he hummed, barely turning his head to look at Billie as she came down into the briefing room after having directed Daud to her spare cot on the bridge for the time being. Corvo retired to his cabin as soon as they docked, not saying a word upon their return. He’d seemed to be on edge, perhaps even a bit apprehensive.

The room was dark but for the low yellow light of the old whale oil lamp in the corner where Sokolov used to paint. Where he was painting now, rather—the natural philosopher’s attention was fixed on a large canvas before him on which the sienna underpainting was beginning to take form.

“Anton,” Billie breathed a sigh of relief and quickened her pace to close the distance and gently place her hand flat against his protruding shoulder blades—even through the thin sweater, it was very noticeable. She frowned at that—Jindosh deserved every second in that chair of his for what he did to Sokolov. It was a shame the inventor wouldn’t remember what he’s done and what exactly that led him to. “How are you feeling?”

“Could be worse,” he muttered, his gaze now glued to the palette in his hand at which he was dabbing with a large bristle brush. His hand was shaking—slightly, but visibly nonetheless. “Don’t tell Doctor Hypatia that I’m up, hm? She was very strict about me being on bed rest.”

 _She’ll see for herself,_ Billie didn’t say as she eyed the canvas. “Anton, you need to listen to her,” she put on her best tone of disapproval. “You need rest and time to recover.”

“…She’s very engaged in her work. It’s easy to see why so many admire her.” He lifted his “sword arm” and made a few broad brushstrokes. “Don’t worry about me, Meagan—” he turned to regard her then, slightly lifting his hand when she opened her mouth to object. “I’ll be fine—I’m not going anywhere.”

Billie was relieved to see the familiar quizzical spark in his eyes when he put the brush and palette down and arched an eyebrow at her. “You started wearing the eyepatch again,” he pointed out.

She sighed, casting her gaze down before undoing the straps and sliding the eyepatch off her face. The coat was next—she carefully dropped both onto the couch nearby. 

The momentary shock in Sokolov’s eyes quickly simmered down to a natural philosopher’s inquisitiveness as he reached for Billie’s arm almost immediately. His bony hands ghosted along the Void stone’s surface with the care of a scientist examining a fragile prototype.

“Curious, yes. Most curious,” he muttered to himself, and Billie let a fond smile creep onto her face. Nothing truly surprised the old man anymore, it seemed.

He turned her hand this way and that in his, running his thumbs along the thin metallic-like wires of the framework that showed through the gaps in the stone, then examined the pair of slender rods that morphed halfway into some sort of wood and extended to the elbow, mimicking the ulna and radius. 

“So this is a sort of Mark, you could say, hm?” He went on. “It’s as if someone made this… manually. Though it baffles me how the wrist holds together so well, with such fragile support…”

Billie scoffed softly. “You’ll just waste all your time trying to solve the Outsider’s puzzles, Anton.”

He turned his attention to the Void sliver in her eye socket next. His examination made Billie feel like a test subject, but she found that amusing. “So you did see him,” he drawled with subdued wonder. “Tell me, Meagan.”

She crinkled her brow in thought. “Well—he looks just like they say, for one. Black eyes. Emotionless.”

Sokolov nodded to himself, as if checking off boxes in a list in his mind. 

“So you’re back at it again with the occult tendencies, then.” He arched an eyebrow again, then stepped back and took in Billie’s entire form, rubbing his chin. “But why? How did you manage to find the Void?”

“I—” she sighed, still in slight disbelief of the whole situation. If not for the Void stone fusing with her flesh, she would have thought that the two men who once upon a time made history and were now snoring on her ship as if nothing had happened were just part of some fever dream. “Right before he went to get you out, Lord Attano asked about Daud.”

Sokolov nodded again. “Alexandria mentioned the Knife. Corvo was also looking for him?”

“Yes. The Outsider told him that Daud knew Delilah, so… we went to find him. And, well, they’re both here now.” She fell silent, her brow furrowing in thought.

A pause followed, then Sokolov gave another nod—slow and understanding. “You told Corvo everything.”

“I did.”

He took her by the upper arm and gave a firm squeeze. “You did the right thing, Meagan. No use bottling it up.”

“I just— And Daud is here now, _finally,_ and it’s been so long and I don’t know what’s next, and—”

His eyes softened as he regarded her for a moment longer before turning to pick up the palette again. “I’ll tell you what’s next. You will go and lie down and get some rest, first and foremost.”

Billie scoffed. “I told you the same thing when I came in.”

“So you did. But I have more authority on the matter.”

Billie shook her head, unable to resist a smile. “Don’t stay too long; you’ll annoy Hypatia.”

“Meagan, I haven’t seen a canvas in weeks. Leave me and go to bed.”

“Can you even see anything in this horrible light? You’re poking around in the dark.”

“Right, yes, there’s a reminder for you to go to the city and buy a new lamp— but see, there’s more to painting than just the visuals. All the tactile sensations, the—” he stepped back to take in the entirety of the canvas, “—feeling of laying down the strokes… it’s quite soothing.”

Billie watched him for a moment longer. “What’s it going to be?”

“I don’t know.” _Liar,_ she thought. He always knew. 

“You’re still here,” he noted after a beat, with faked annoyance in his voice.

Billie smiled to herself and, after having picked up her coat and eyepatch from the couch, left the master to his work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess I'm experimenting with switching PoVs within the chapter, but I'm still planning on keeping most of them focused on one character at a time. 
> 
> P.S. Yay Billie got both of her dads back  
> P.P.S. LOW CHAOS DOES NOT APPLY TO WITCHES YALL
> 
>  
> 
> Late edit: as I was writing this (and the previous) chapter it completely escaped my mind that Daud just stopped time when he got out, so let’s just pretend that Corvo couldn’t see it because he didn’t unlock Bend Time yet (???) and also kinda forgot that that was a thing (because who’s got time for logical reasoning when you’re In the Moment, amirite)


	6. Chapter 6

Daud awoke feeling even worse than he did before he fell asleep—simply put, he felt like shit.

He hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in so long that it seemed his body refused to rest out of habit. Everything ached and getting up was the last thing he wished to do, but, according to the small clock next to the ship controls, he’s been lying awake and staring at the ceiling as if it had something to say for the past hour and a half. Clearly, he wasn’t about to go back to sleep anytime soon, not with the light streaming in through the windows and casting rectangular patterns on the wooden floor—it was already a little after noon. 

Lying around proved absolutely useless.

He sighed and sat up, cringing at the way his spine complained at the rigidness of the wire cot, and rubbed his face as if the exhaustion could be scrubbed off. His throat was dry as parchment and his stomach begged for food but he knew he wouldn’t be able to swallow even a bite, not right away, not after his body had closed up to anything that wasn’t pain in the past couple months and was still trying to adjust to its absence. Trying to figure out where the tension and the headaches have gone to the point where it created them on its own, just to psychologically get back to that prison that managed to become somewhat of a comfort zone. It was ridiculous how a period as short as two months could stretch to feel like years.

The only thing that provided actual comfort was the faint tingling in his left hand—that dear sensation that sparked softly with glee for the fact that his powers were finally free again. It soothed the knots in his thoughts as if they were muscle—and he hated it, he hated the Mark for having this kind of influence over him, he hated the black-eyed bastard for ever forcing it on him and he had no choice but to love it and cherish it in these moments of emotional relief. 

Though, he would never have had to endure all this pain that the Mark was now relieving him of if he didn’t have it in the first place.

Daud massaged the back of his left hand with his thumb, not registering that he was applying more pressure than necessary.

His ribcage hurt when he took a deep breath—everything hurt, really, so it wasn’t of any use to list every little thing in his mind and thus risk making it worse. The thirst put everything else to shame, though, and made him finally stand up from his resting place—if he could even call it that.

He could not suppress another wince when his back muscles screamed as he reached for his tunic and put it on—it was amusing, really, how sometimes the overexertion of his powers after a long period of dormancy could feel somewhat like a hangover the next day. Much worse, really.

 _It’ll pass,_ he told himself. It was fine. He’d been in worse spots.

The gentle lapping of waves overboard filled the room and settled on his ears with a pleasant weight as he buttoned the collar of his tunic and slicked back his hair with a touch of grease out of a small tin from the inner pocket of his jacket—the Eyeless didn’t bother to search him beyond his weapons, thankfully—then put on his red coat and fastened the heavy belt around his waist. The gloves came next. He left the jacket—it wasn’t nearly cold enough to wear it, and when he opened the door to the outside the chilly ocean air that brushed his face and threaded him down to the bones felt like bliss.

He didn’t hurry to go below deck—he leaned on the railing and took in a chest full of fresh air, almost succeeding in ignoring the ache in his ribs and just taking a moment to breathe in the moisture and salt and look out to the horizon that spanned the endless expanse of the ocean. No cities. No isles. No empires. Just the wind and the water.

He closed his eyes and spent several minutes like that, in which he felt he got more rest than he did in the past several hours.

Returning his gaze to Karnaca’s shores in the distance made all the problems that recently dawned on him feel both numbingly distant and irritatingly pressing at the same time. 

His thoughts strayed to the previous night and to the new developments that he hadn’t ever expected. The fact that Billie managed to find him wasn’t all that hard to believe, but Corvo… Daud furrowed his brow as he looked out on the water. He’d heard what happened in Dunwall, of course. He’d heard that Empress Kaldwin was alive, though the details were lost on him as well as anyone else besides her father, evidently. He’d heard that Delilah somehow managed to free herself from the seemingly impregnable prison of banishment. Daud clicked his tongue at that thought. Magic was unreliable—he and the whole Empire learned that the hard way. He should have just killed her, like he did so many others. None of this would have had happened if he had. He wouldn’t be standing on this boat, he wouldn’t be pondering what in the world—and why—Corvo Attano could possibly want from him, of all people.

Seeing Billie again made all of this worth it. Maybe.

Still—Corvo already established what he wanted, didn’t he? Daud shrugged inwardly at the prospect. Corvo was capable, he knew that very well. There weren’t many reasons for him to seek out unlikely allies in the face of a problem, it seemed—not when the subject matter directly involved his family, something he would never trust anyone but himself with.

Nonetheless, Daud saw it last night. Saw the hints of desperation through the cracks in Corvo’s mask—no, his top layer of superiority and bitterness and hate. The top layer that could not completely shield the love and fear that a father held for his daughter.

And Daud managed to pick that up in mere minutes of their reunion. Some people were easy to read, if one knew what to look for—Corvo Attano was no puzzle box in that regard. 

Daud would hear him out. He didn’t suppose he had a choice in the matter, anyway, not with their history. He owed Corvo that much. 

And he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued by the fact that the man sought him out himself. Whether or not that was a smart decision to make, well, that was a different matter entirely.

Daud took a few more minutes to listen to the ocean, then finally returned to the bridge and went down the stairs. The ship wasn’t the biggest as far as cargo vessels went—looking around shouldn’t take all that long. He didn’t know how long he’d be here for, and that uncertainty only added to the necessity of closely examining the place sometime during his stay.

*

In the main cargo hold—it was furnished to serve as a dining or briefing room, Daud guessed when he noticed a large table and a bulletin board with a few portraits and newspaper clippings pinned up—was Anton Sokolov, sitting on a couch and reading a book.

No one told him that he’d find the brightest mind of natural philosophy on board. 

“You’re up.”

It took a few seconds for Daud to realize that the words were addressed to him. 

“…Professor Sokolov,” he raised his eyebrows and rasped with the surfacing thirst and disuse of his voice. He cleared his throat.

“How are you feeling? Sleep well?”

The casual feel of the conversation felt strange, to say the least. Sokolov sounded like he’s been expecting Daud—now that he thought about it, that was very likely the case. “Fine,” he replied curtly.

Sokolov gave a nod of approval. “Miss Foster is out—she took the doctor to the city for some supplies.” 

“Miss Foster?” How many people were on this boat, exactly?

“Ah— miss Lurk, I mean.”

So, as it seemed, Billie had an alias and Sokolov knew her real name. Fine—Daud was content with that information for the time being and refrained from asking further questions. Though, he thought, the fact that he didn’t see the docked skiff from the bridge deck made sense now.

Sokolov lowered the book to his lap and fixed his gaze on Daud. “You’re surprised to see me.” 

Daud looked back at him and suppressed the faint urge to scoff. “To be honest, yes.”

The corner of the Tyvian’s mouth twitched up into a half-smirk. Even from this distance Daud thought he could see a glint of amused curiosity in his eyes. “Well, I must admit it’s quite strange finally seeing you after all these years, as well,” Sokolov said. “How have you been, Daud?”

The urge to scoff strengthened. Daud knew Sokolov was better than that—asking complicated questions in a way that made it seem like he was talking about the weather—the man was toying with him. He heaved a sigh with a touch of amusement of his own. “Do you really want me to answer that, Professor?”

Sokolov narrowed his eyes roguishly. “But can you?” 

“I could.”

“Good, then. That’s all that matters.”

Daud responded with a light shrug—that was perfectly fine by him.

“Come, have a seat,” Sokolov said after a moment.

Daud swallowed to at least try to return some moisture to his mouth. He failed. “Sure, but uh, is there something I could drink—”

“Ah, of course, of course—the galley is behind you, on the right. Help yourself.”

Daud nodded and headed to the appointed place. The ship’s galley was mainly bare but held the necessities—a stove, a water tank, some shelves with bread and canned food. A teapot. ...Two teapots. For propriety’s sake he examined the shelves to find a mug, then raised an eyebrow—for all the supposed scarcity of resources, Billie owned quite a few mugs. 

He picked the one that was shoved in the back; he didn’t want to accidentally use anyone’s personal cup and possibly offend them. He scoffed inwardly at the ridiculous but nonetheless natural sentiment. He was in another person’s home now, a _guest_ —the thought was utterly strange but that was the situation, wasn’t it?

He poured some water and finally gulped it all down in one go, uncaring for the way the icy cold momentarily numbed his throat. Then he poured another mug and drank again. And then once more. He felt infinitely better right away.

Setting the mug aside, he gave the kitchen a last sweeping glance before returning to Sokolov and sitting down at the table, at the side closest to him.

As soon as he sat down Sokolov gave voice. 

“She’s been looking for you, you know.” Daud didn’t need to ask for clarification. “Before we went to warn Corvo about the coup. She’s looked for you for months.”

Daud stayed silent, brow furrowed slightly with something like melancholy. Then he nodded—a small motion, barely noticeable.

“How long have you known each other?” he asked.

Sokolov took a moment to think. “Four— five years, now. I was on a promenade, painting, and she took an interest and approached. I asked her if she has ever tried painting and she said no.”

Daud raised his brows at the unexpectedly casual mental image that the description brought on.

“...and then I asked her if she wanted to learn, just to keep the conversation going, and she said no. And I asked her why not, and she said she’d make a horrible painter.

“And I told her, that’s exactly how many beginners think, and that improvement is simply a matter of fundamentals and practice, and she...” Sokolov’s brow crinkled. “She went silent, and stayed silent for quite some time, until she finally said that she didn’t have the right heart for it.” 

He looked at nothing in particular in front of him, lost in the memory. “She looked so unhappy in that moment. Although, I don’t think she wanted to be perceived that way.”

Daud let out a soft sigh, feeling a pang in the heart. “No,” he said quietly. “She wouldn’t have.”

They stayed silent for a minute, each lost in their own thoughts. 

At last, Daud broke the silence: “You called her by a different name at first—miss...?”

“Foster,” Sokolov filled in. “Meagan Foster—her pseudonym.”

Daud nodded. It seemed Billie had tried to make a new life for herself. He was proud of her for that.

It was too bad that it all threatened to go down the drain, now.

“Corvo helped find you, I hear,” Sokolov continued. “I wasn’t here at the time, I was... in captivity, and Meagan tells me he was quite intent on it.” 

_Why?_ Daud almost asked, but then decided to hold off and let the forenamed man tell him himself. Following that train of thought, he threw a glance over his shoulder into the empty hallway—Corvo seemed to still be asleep. 

“I still don’t really understand how all of you ended up together,” he said.

“Ah, well. You know of the Crown Killer, yes?” Sokolov nodded to himself when Daud indicated affirmation. “I’ve been examining the murders when they began and found the suspicious involvement of Duke Abele. It all looked dreadfully sinister—so much so that I was sure that Luca was stirring a plot against our Empress, so I resolved to warn her and Corvo but was abducted from this very boat by the Crown Killer himself before we could set out for Dunwall. That’s where Meagan came in—she traveled to Dunwall, picked Corvo up after the coup happened and told him of my findings and brought him back to Karnaca to begin the... hands-on investigations.“ He leaned back onto the couch, a thoughtful expression on his face. “That’s how Meagan told it, in any case.”

Daud tilted his head to take a look at the bulletin board. “And those are your plans regarding the coup?”

“Yes—the beginnings of them. A rough mapping out of Delilah’s associates.” As soon as he finished Sokolov struggled through a coughing fit, then excused himself and leaned back again.

They sat in silence for a time, and while Daud was examining the board he felt that Sokolov was examining _him_ like he was some painting. 

“If you have something to say, Professor, then you might as well,” he finally said.

“Please—just Anton to you, now. I expect we’ll be here for quite some time, might as well get more familiar with each other.”

Daud allowed half a smile to ghost over his features. They never did get a chance to get acquainted beyond professional amicability back at the Academy—not that the great Anton Sokolov was very approachable in the first place. 

“Alright, Anton,” Daud indulged him.

Sokolov nodded with approval. “I must say, it’s… an honor to meet you at this point in our lives.”

Daud narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like where this was going.

“Well now you’re looking positively bemused,” Sokolov chuckled. “You must understand, Daud, regicide is not something easily forgotten by the people. I expect that being reminded of it is the last thing you wish for right now, but, being in my current position, it’s simply fascinating to be surrounded by people who, essentially, wrote history.” 

No surprise there—Daud had neither impulse nor energy to be irritated by the reminder. Not for a long time. At some point in the past decade and a half it became clear that he couldn’t possibly blame anyone for constantly bringing up the murder of Jessamine Kaldwin, First of Her Name—just as Sokolov said, it was bound to be the topic of many conversations for decades to come. It was no one’s fault but his own that Daud happened to be the one to throw the Empire into this mess.

He’s gotten used to the hordes of pretentious aristocrats who _observed_ political events from the outside as if the state of the Empire was some game, or maybe an exotic fish in a fishbowl; who called every other development _interesting_ and _fascinating_ and _very, oh yes, very intriguing,_ all the while being completely uninterested in having opinions of their own. There were countless people who condemned the murder and mourned the late Empress to this day, yes—but there was also an alarming number of others who would at first opportunity welcome the one who held the knife with open arms into their extravagant homes for tea, who would revel in having a chance of meeting face to face with the legendary killer, the insurrectionist, the man who turned everything on its head for reasons still unknown. 

It was disgusting and pitiful. Daud has long since lost all hope for the world where leaving a child motherless made for the loudest entertainment. 

He has always hated aristocrats, but he has also learned to live with them.

“Indeed,” he replied, unamused, though there was a nip of chill in his tone. “Must be tiring work.”

Sokolov snorted. “You’re mocking me.”

Daud raised his eyebrows in a parody of innocence. “What ever gave you that idea?”

The old man narrowed his eyes contemplatively. “Yes, yes, I understand that you must be tired of hearing it from all the fanatics out there, but it truly is excep—”

“Yes, exceptional. Extraordinary, fascinating, interesting, engrossing.” Daud took a second to think of another synonym off the top of his head. “Riveting.” There was no acrimony in his voice as he calmly, though not without a hint of dry amusement, went through the list. “Trust me, Anton, I’ve heard it all. You don’t have to try and add anything else to my vocabulary.” 

He received a huff in response, akin to a short laugh. “Fine, fine. I can see that the prospect of fame did not manage to enrapture you like it does so many. But then, you never were the type to care about all that.” 

Yes, fame. Such a small word, the notion of which was large enough to overshadow anything that actually mattered.

“Tell me, Professor,” Daud leaned back in his chair. “Do you consider all your current knowledge and fame worth the experiments you conducted back in the day?”

Something flashed in Sokolov’s eyes at that. Then he smiled, small and strained as it was. 

“No,” he said. “No, I do not.”

Letting the words speak for themselves, Daud offered no response. 

No one liked getting their past stirred.

It was a couple of minutes later when the clang of a door opening and closing resounded in the hallway and both men turned their heads to find a sleep-addled Corvo squinting at them and blinking to try to adjust to the brightness. He quickly gave up on the task, it seemed, and turned a corner into what Daud assumed was the lavatory. 

“Well,” Sokolov said. “At least someone’s been getting some rest, it appears.”

“Doesn’t look like he’s done,” Daud noted.

“No, I suppose not.” 

Corvo showed up again after a minute and, after taking a second to seemingly decide where to go next, settled on the galley. His shirt was untucked and he still looked like he wasn’t entirely sure where he was, but he did give a nod of acknowledgment when Sokolov wished him a good morning.

Not that it was still morning, but— eh, details.

Sokolov let out a chuckle. “Meagan’s turned this poor boat into a hotel,” he said. “Maybe that’s why everything is coming apart.”

Daud huffed in response. “Right,” he remembered, “when I came in, you also mentioned a doctor?”

“Doctor Alexandria Hypatia, yes. She was planning on leaving soon, and then I expect you’ll be accommodated in her current cabin.” 

Daud chose not to comment on that, still unsure of how he felt about the prospect of staying here for a prolonged amount of time. Still, he recognized the name of the chief alchemist of the Addermire Institute—he didn’t even bother being surprised to find _her_ here, as well. This boat-hotel certainly seemed to attract an eccentric lot. 

“What’s her story?” he asked.

The corner of Sokolov’s mouth twitched up. “She was the Crown Killer,” he said bluntly, in a mysterious voice, and raised his eyes to look somewhere behind Daud, who frowned at him in confusion. “I’m sure that Corvo here could tell you all about that.”

Daud turned his head to follow the trajectory of Sokolov’s gaze and found the Lord Protector standing in the kitchen’s doorway with a mug in his hand, looking disheveled both physically and spiritually.

“About what now?” Corvo grunted with a sleep-induced rasp.

He didn’t get the rest he needed, either, Daud saw—the bags under his eyes made that crystal clear. 

“The Crown Killer,” Sokolov repeated. “Quite a curious case… and utterly dreadful, of course.”

“Hypatia? She had a poison-induced split personality,” Corvo said.

Daud furrowed his brow and cocked his head, not seeing where he was going with this. “Fascinating,” he deadpanned.

“One of them was carrying out the murders at Delilah’s behest.” 

Ah—now things were starting to get interesting.

“Poison, huh? So I assume she was cured.”

“Mhm.” 

Corvo clearly wasn’t going to elaborate, but Daud supposed it didn’t matter now, anyway.

The room fell into silence again and Daud felt horribly out of place. Not that his being here was his fault to begin with.

“Well,” Sokolov broke the almost palpable silence after a minute or two, “if you gentlemen will excuse me, I was going to get some air.” 

He got up with visible effort and began to make his way towards the stairs and, having waved Corvo off when he offered to help, left the room.

The pathetic excuse to leave the two of them alone was so glaringly obvious that it wasn’t surprising in the least. 

Daud stayed sitting right where he was, hands folded in his lap and acutely feeling Corvo’s eyes fixed on him. When the man ended up saying nothing, Daud turned his head to meet his suspecting gaze.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” he asked placidly. “I’m not exactly here of my own accord, if you’ve forgotten.”

Corvo looked at him for a moment longer.

“I haven’t forgotten,” he said.

Somehow, it seemed like Corvo was waiting for an invitation—perhaps he didn't want to begin any discussions under the impression of it being by his own choice, Daud inferred—and he nodded at the chair at the opposite side of the table just to see if his assumption was correct.

Indeed—Corvo sat down soon after.

Daud supposed that was something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hohohoh


	7. Chapter 7

Looking right at the very subject of his recent nightmare didn’t help anything.

Corvo has long since stopped having those dreams, it’s been years—but nonetheless, a mere hour ago, Jessamine breathed her last breath and died in his arms all over again.

He still remembered the nightmares that little Emily used to tell him about in the Hound Pits Pub, as well as Dunwall Tower later on. He still remembered—he would always remember—how he would sit with his arms wrapped around her tiny form and let her cling to him whenever she was afraid of the scarred man and the people in respirator masks that killed her mother and took her away, over and over again, night after night.

He still remembered how he would pretend that he wasn’t suffering from the exact same dreams. 

And despite fully understanding the intricacies of the situation, despite knowing who was really to blame for the whole turmoil that the Empire was thrown into, it was never Burrows that he saw on those nights—it was never his rat-like face, never his scheming smirk that ran Jessamine through. It was Daud, it was always, undeniably, Daud.

Only, the killer that was now looking back at him from the opposite side of the table didn’t exactly look like the one in those dreams. If Corvo tried really hard, he could even pretend that it wasn’t the same man at all. 

But he wouldn’t do that.

Daud looked at him calmly, but that calmness did not hide the hints of expectancy that gleamed in his eyes.

Corvo leaned back in his chair and took in a sharp breath. “Finding you wasn’t as difficult as I thought it’d be,” was all that he thought to say, to which his interlocutor only raised an eyebrow. Of course, Corvo couldn’t take all the credit for it. He wouldn’t get anywhere without Billie... and Billie would likely not get anywhere without the note that Corvo accidentally brought to her. “Happened on pure chance, really. Suppose that must mean something.”

“Never took you for a man who relied on chance,” Daud replied.

Corvo scoffed at that. “Everything happens by chance. You’d think that little curlicue on your hand would have made you realize that by now.”

Countless times, Corvo pondered what would happen if he hadn’t returned from his trip around the Isles two days earlier, if he had come back exactly when he was supposed to. If he hadn’t been wrongfully accused and thrown into prison, would the Outsider have granted him his gift then? Would he have helped him get his daughter back?

Only, that was never what the god cared about, was it?

“If I’m here to discuss philosophy,” Daud sighed, “then all I can tell you is that I don’t give a damn about how or why the Outsider does what he does, and we can leave it at that.”

“Oh, but I think you should care,” Corvo said, recalling the night of the coup. Not even a full month has passed, and it already felt so long ago. “He’s the one that directed me to you, and, well,” he pushed down the arising scowl, “you’ll have to forgive my tendency to find a certain amount of credibility in the voice of a god who helped me lift the Empire back up, once.” 

The unsaid accusation hung in the air.

“Maybe he’s simply toying with you,” Daud said after a moment’s consideration. “You haven’t thought of that?”

Corvo could feel the reluctance rolling off of the man—at the same time, he felt like he was being tested in some way. Maybe the prospect should have irritated him, but the lack of any energy didn’t allow it.

“I have,” he answered truthfully. “But—I have reason to believe he wants me to succeed.” With all the god’s interest in his actions, Corvo didn’t think he would be purposefully led into a dead end. “He doesn’t drop names without a reason, as I’m sure you know. So, Daud.” Corvo clasped his hands together on the table and fixed a steel gaze on him. “Now that we’re both finally here—tell me about Delilah.”

In the short amount of time that they’ve interacted, Corvo was already used to these frequent pauses that Daud took before speaking, whether it was to assess the situation, to think, or something else. This time, he was clearly looking for something in Corvo’s eyes, and the latter let him. 

“What does it matter now?” Daud finally asked.

Corvo furrowed his brow slightly. “You tell me,” he replied, voice quiet. He really didn’t know what to expect. 

Daud swept his gaze casually over the table’s surface before stopping on Billie’s ashtray. “You smoke?”

“No.”

“Does Billie have any cigarettes around here?”

Corvo had no way of knowing whether he was stalling or toying with him or if he genuinely and urgently wanted a cigarette. “I don’t know,” he said dryly, “she smokes pipes.”

Daud gave the table another glance as though he expected a pack to appear out of nowhere. Then, he suddenly lifted his eyes and locked them with Corvo’s. “You know, you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”

He was definitely stalling, and all of this was starting to get on Corvo’s nerves. “And whose fault is that?” he snapped without thinking, but his thoughts were spilling out and his tongue was unraveling and he felt like he could do pretty little about that. “I didn’t ask to start seeing your face at night as soon as we brought you here. I didn’t ask to be forced into a situation where I have to turn for help to the walking source of the pain in my life, and then lose sleep over that decision.” 

He was tired. He was so fucking tired of doubts and empty self-assurances and he certainly didn’t come here to explain himself to the one man who ruined his life.

“Start talking, fucker.”

It wasn’t hard to pull out, like from a clew of yarn, all this anger and contempt that boiled up to the surface at the first opportunity. Corvo was very aware of that.

He didn’t need to guess that Daud could plainly see the pain under his crumbling resolve. The aforementioned lack of sleep didn’t help to keep himself together, and frankly, he couldn’t be bothered to care.

“I don’t think you’ll want to hear this,” Daud said quietly.

He even had the gall to suggest that. Corvo gritted his teeth.

“That’s not for you to decide.”

Daud sighed in resignation then, and Corvo was beginning to wonder whether he would actually start talking or not.

“You were in Coldridge—it wasn’t long before your escape,” as if replying to his thoughts, Daud finally began. Corvo narrowed his eyes at the setting; when the grief and the self pity and the apathy that sometimes followed threatened to bend him in half in his cell, he’d sometimes find himself wondering what the Knife of Dunwall was doing. What he was thinking. Whom he would kill next, and how. “The Outsider came to me and gave me a name.”  


“Delilah.”

“Yes. I didn’t know what it meant, and wanted to ignore it. After the six months of guilt I thought the black-eyed bastard was done with me and I with him; I tried to pretend that this reappearance of his didn’t mean anything. But he told me that my time was coming to an end, and, like it or not, I couldn’t ignore that. I was miserable, but I wanted to live. He knew how much I hated mysteries, and a mystery was exactly what he gave me.”

Corvo had no energy or impulse to interrupt with any snide remarks—he still remembered Daud’s plea for his life. He still remembered the sincerity, the remorse in his voice, despite doing his best to ignore and deny it. Now, Daud talked about his guilt like he was talking about the weather. Like it was a cold hard fact he’d accepted long ago.

“So I found her. A baker’s apprentice from Dunwall Tower, Jessamine’s childhood friend. Later, Sokolov’s apprentice, as well.”

Corvo tensed up at that. The similarities of the recounted events and his memories were now beginning to appear.

“When she strolled into Dunwall Tower she claimed to be Jessamine’s sister,” he said.

Daud hummed with something like confirmation mixed with surprise. “What’s your take on that?”

“Jessamine never had any sisters, and never mentioned any Delilahs or apprentices of bakers,” Corvo said with more conviction in his voice than he actually felt. At least, Jessamine never told Corvo anything of the sort, and the idea of her hiding something as major as an immediate family member from him was unthinkable.

Daud hitched his shoulder in a light shrug. “There’s always a possibility that Delilah is lying.”

“I’m sure she is.” 

He hoped so.

Corvo flicked his wrist in place of asking Daud to continue.

“Have you heard of the Brigmore Witches?”

Corvo narrowed his eyes questioningly. The Brigmore family was bankrupted decades ago, and, back in the day, their estate used to serve as a lair for some of the city’s outlaws. “I’ve heard of the Brigmore Manor.”

“Yes, well; that was where Delilah’s coven was based during the Rat Plague. Delilah was an angry little lady, only, her anger had an outlet because she was Marked.” 

Daud paused then. “What?” he grunted, making Corvo realize that his face was suddenly twisted in a grimace of confusion.

“What kind of power,” he hissed slowly, talking mostly to himself as he verbalized the concerns still present in his mind, “did the Outsider give her, so that she can now take away the power of others?”

Daud frowned with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. “What do you mean?”

Corvo thrust out his left hand, placing it palm down on the table between them. Daud eyed the Mark with a raised eyebrow. “This,” Corvo said, “is barely three weeks old. The Outsider gave me a new one after Delilah _pulled it off my hand_.”

Daud’s eyes widened. “Are you sure—”

“I’m pretty fucking sure, Daud. She trapped me in some sort of tendril, then did something with her hands, and then I felt that my skin was getting either burned or torn off. Then the Mark was gone.”

Corvo would be lying if he said that it didn’t feel good to finally being able to vent to someone who, much more likely than anyone else, could relate and understand what he meant. Even if Daud couldn’t give him all the answers, the idea of sharing the burden of black magic and all its secrets with someone else, someone who‘s had the Mark even longer than he had, felt like a weight off his shoulders.

Daud let out a rumbling exhale and rubbed his chin in thought.

“This is serious,” he muttered.

“No shit,” Corvo snapped back but it came out softer than he meant. He sounded just as confused and agitated as he felt. “And I certainly can’t assume that she won’t be able to do it again.”

Daud scratched his jaw, frowning. “Her powers grew somehow.”

And Corvo needed to understand what her powers were like back then in order to see just how much they grew, so he asked Daud to continue his tale.

“...I had a couple of run-ins with Delilah before I could finally get to her, and I knew she was planning something. Something big. I didn’t like the sound of it.” 

Corvo wondered if one of those _run-ins_ included the Overseers’ attack on the Whalers, but refrained from asking.

“I tracked her all the way to the Brigmore Manor, and lots of things immediately became clear. She—as expected—wanted to be Empress.”

“I see that ambition of hers didn’t change.”

“Apparently not. Only, it seems that she changed her approach. Back then, she was more... subtle.”

Corvo frowned in inquiry.

Daud sighed. “You see, she was a sculptor and a painter. Still is, I imagine— combined with the powers of the Void, she used those artistic skills of hers in unconventional ways.”

“How?” Corvo wasn’t sure if Daud was purposefully stalling and not getting to a point, or if it just felt like that due to his impatience.

The next words felt so sharp and direct by comparison that Corvo had to give a couple of hard blinks to clear his mind.

“Possession rituals,” Daud said. “The permanent kind.”

Corvo really, really did not like where he suspected this was going.

“...And?” he probed. 

“Her studio,” Daud continued, his words quieter and slower this time, “was littered with dozens of sketches and paintings of various sizes and stages of completion. They were all different, but the subject was the same.” Daud searched Corvo’s eyes and that brought a pang of worry to the pit of his stomach. “Delilah was a skilled artist. And after that day in the gazebo, I’d have recognized Emily Kaldwin’s face anywhere.”

Corvo’s mouth went dry.

Before he went on, Daud’s eyes showed something like empathy when they lingered on his face. 

“Delilah was smart,” he continued, “but not as smart as she thought she was. She covered her tracks well, but as soon as I stepped into her lair all her secrets were out in the open. It didn’t take much effort to figure out that she was working on a painting of the heiress that she planned to use for one of those rituals—by the time I arrived, the painting was already complete.

“There was another painting—a painting of the Void—that led to her ritual site. Her paintings were portals... some sorts of entryways into different dimensions, and this one led to the Void. The canvas was blank at first glance—you needed a special lantern to illuminate the painting and then enter it.”

Corvo wasn’t sure if the details were distracting him from the idea of Delilah wanting to harm Emily unbeknownst to him or if they only worked to agitate him further. 

“From what I’d gathered, if the possession ritual was completed and the possession target was not the subject in the painting, then the performer would be trapped. If the subject was the possession target, well... Delilah would have snuffed out Emily’s mind and inhabited her body and no one would have known until it was too late. She was playing the long game—she predicted correctly that Emily would assume the throne, but by that time she would already be seeing out of the girl’s eyes.”

Corvo sat still and silent for a moment, then pretended not to hear his voice shaking when he finally spoke. “When was this, exactly?”

“Not long after Waverly Boyle’s disappearance.”

The hand that still lay on the table began to visibly shake and Corvo pulled it back, only it didn’t stop the unpleasant sensation of lightness in his limbs.

They were at the Pub at that time. Everything was going according to plan. Only, Emily would have woken up the next day, having been turned into a walking doll for Corvo to find in place of his daughter.

Everything would have been for naught. While Corvo was dealing with the usurper, Emily would have been taken away from right under his nose, and he’d forever be left wondering what went wrong in one of the nights that he’d left her behind. When he thought she’d been safe.

And even if he was there with her, he wouldn’t have been able to protect her.

“...rvo. Corvo!”

Corvo flinched in his seat when Daud’s voice pulled him out of his momentary trance. Then he let out a sharp exhale, still acutely aware of the shakiness of his breath.

His voice was no better. “What happened after?” It felt like it took all of his remaining strength to utter the words, even as a weak whisper that it was. 

He wanted to ignore the way it looked like Daud’s eyes softened with something like pity, or understanding—he wanted to pretend that he imagined it, but the idea of imagining empathy in a murderer didn’t make him feel any better about it.

After a moment, though, the shock from the possibility of having lost his daughter to a fate worse than death sucked up all the energy he had and left none for his weak attempts at denial.

It felt vulnerable to take things at face value, but in that moment it also felt emotionally relieving.

Daud’s voice was almost gentle when he spoke then. 

“As I said, Delilah wasn’t as smart as she thought she was, because I managed to find a different painting and replace Emily’s with it without her knowing. She completed the ritual, only she was banished. Trapped in one of her own works.”

Corvo looked at him with what he hoped read as mistrust and not helpless desperation. “How do you know?”

“Because I was there and she knew that something was wrong. Before the painting sucked her in, she knew I’d meddled in her plans in more ways than she could control.” Daud was quiet for a moment. “And then she was gone. Without her, of course, the coven was left powerless and eventually dissolved.

“And then you floated into the Flooded District, and we both know what happened next.”

Corvo took a deep, shaky breath. Part of him wished he hadn’t heard any of this and was left content in his blissful ignorance.

“You saved Emily,” he croaked, his voice not his own.

“I suppose I did.”

Everything he knew or was sure of was flipped on its head and Corvo had no idea what to make of any of it. His thoughts were so tangled he didn’t know where to start to unravel.

“I...”

“That’s done now, Corvo. That’s all done.”

The words made him let out a heavy breath of unconscious relief he didn’t realize he was holding. This happened fifteen full years ago—and still the news of it managed to wind up so much worry and shock that it felt like the calamity was happening right now. Somehow, the way Delilah opened the doors and walked into Dunwall Tower and let Corvo and everyone else _see_ what she was doing felt like a huge act of mercy.

He was so tired. He didn’t know just how much more spent he could possibly feel.

The silence was broken by Daud once again. 

“But now, Delilah is back. Somehow, she got out of banishment.”

Corvo wasn’t sure if he was physically capable of thinking about that right now. Fifteen years ago, with the Mark on his hand his main weapon and the mask covering his face, transversing the roofs of Dunwall as he got closer and closer to the Lord Regent, he thought he was invincible. He thought he had everything under control—with the will of the Outsider lending him strength, nothing could stop him from exacting justice on the world that wronged him.

He wondered, if Delilah had succeeded in her plans, would he ever find out just how powerless and insignificant he really was?

Would the Outsider have told him _anything?_ Anything at all? Or would he have watched, in silence, as Corvo’s spirit slowly crumbled away, year after year?

“...Thank you.”

Only after a long moment of blankly staring at the scratched wood of the table did Corvo realize that he said something. 

He raised his eyes to find Daud looking back at him intently, mild surprise written across his face.

These two measly words somehow managed to summon a speck of assurance in him and in that moment Corvo could not even bother to care just whom in the world he was thanking. Even if Jessamine wasn’t killed, even if he didn’t spend six months behind bars, even if the Outsider didn’t make him his herald, Delilah would have still been a grave threat. A threat that Corvo would have known nothing about and would have no control over, even if everything turned out differently.

So it happened that the Knife of Dunwall deserved every bit of gratitude Corvo had in him.

“Thank you,” Corvo repeated, looking straight into Daud’s eyes, with much more strength in his voice.

“I didn’t do it for you,” was the response he got, but it was obvious by his tone that Daud wasn’t sure if he believed it himself.

“I don’t care.” Corvo said truthfully, his stare as unwavering as his new conviction. “It mattered. You saved my daughter. You saved the fucking empire, Daud.”

Corvo didn’t expect him to understand just how much that meant, how conflicted and confused it made him, hearing that Jessamine’s killer and abductor of Emily could possibly be the same person who saved the Empire from a fate much worse than simple regicide.

He studied Daud’s face then, really looked at it, taking in all the details and ignoring the look he got in return—the scar was faded and pale, the wrinkle lines were deepened and some more were added with age. The light crinkles formed around his eyes as he looked back with casual, unthreatened suspicion. Corvo never could decide what to think of the fact that Daud’s face was imprinted into his mind with silvergraphic detail, but that mental image did not quite correspond with the reality in front of him and Corvo didn’t know whom he was looking at anymore. Whether this man was a killer, a savior, something in between or neither. 

The only thing that was clear were the fifteen years reflected on his—as well as Corvo’s own, he supposed—weathered face.

They were similar in that way, he thought then—they were both getting old, they both acutely felt the passage of time. Fifteen years was a long time.

And suddenly, being stuck in one moment of that time seemed utterly ridiculous.

Corvo placed both his elbows on the table and raked his hands through his hair, then rubbed his face. 

“Daud—” somehow, the name didn’t bear the usual bitter weight when he said it. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where we’ll be going from here, but—” _we._ How quickly his tune has changed. “I need to save my daughter again, and I need your help to do that.”

Somehow, these words, this _plea_ felt like the most natural thing he’s said in weeks.

Somehow, the pause that came after it did not summon any new doubts. He was thankful for that—his mind was overflowing enough as it was.

Daud nodded, and somehow, the curtness of the gesture did not shroud its sincerity.

“Alright,” he said, and it felt like more than just an agreement. It felt like genuine empathy. Understanding. Corvo didn’t know how this man could possibly understand anything that he felt, but something made him believe that he did, and that was enough. 

It seemed like everything that Daud told him was supposed to be difficult to believe, but he believed him utterly and completely.

He felt the truth of it all with his entire being. Emily was never safe, and he was a fool to ever think that she was. She was all he had left. He couldn’t imagine losing her, he was nothing without her. He would simply crumble away if she was gone, and the way her life was left hanging by a thread at this very moment made him feel it in his every bone.

And the grip of that feeling was creeping closer and closer to his throat.

If Corvo could just shut his eyes and collapse into a deep sleep on the spot, he would do so in a heartbeat.

“I just want her to be okay,” he uttered in not much more than a trembling whisper, his stare blank and unseeing somewhere ahead of him. He barely even registered saying the words at all. “The whole damn world can burn for all I care. I just want my Emily back—”

His head felt light, his vision swam, and he only barely discerned the sharp movement on the opposite end of the table before everything faded away to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Oops
> 
> So I'm always a sucker for Corvo finding out about Delilah in Dunwall.  
> :^( poor Corvo, just let him sleep and rest and process everything


	8. Chapter 8

A shudder rolled down Daud’s spine as he took a drag of a cigarette for the first time in months.

He’d noticed a half-crumbled pack under the low table in the enclosed corner of the briefing room where were two chairs, some books, and a deck of cards that lay in disarray. The pack was dusty, the three remaining cigarettes seemingly abandoned—Billie wouldn’t mind, he thought, if he borrowed one. The galley provided with some matches.

He never smoked indoors—the plume of smoke left his mouth and dissolved almost instantly into the chilly air against the backdrop of the ocean’s deep blue. Not even a full day has passed since he arrived here and he was already finding himself getting so easily sucked into the calm of staying on a boat anchored a bit away from the shore, where the hustling of cities felt so distant but just near enough to be registered. 

He had to be honest—the talk with Corvo went much better than he expected. It was nerve-wracking—he saw clear as day that Corvo wasn’t ready to hear that the murderer of his child’s mother was the same man that saved his child from immeasurable danger. And, really, how _could_ he have been ready? How did one even prepare for such a thing? 

The sheer intensity of everything that crashed down on him was reflected in the way he straight up lost consciousness and nearly fell off his chair, were Daud not there in a split second to catch him and then drag him back to his cabin. Corvo was heavier than he expected, but then again, all that height and muscle had to weigh something.

All things considered, Corvo took the news well. Daud had expected him to ignore it, to deny even the smallest possibility that his daughter had been in any danger that he himself couldn’t have predicted or eradicated; that, in truth, his family’s history was tied with the Knife of Dunwall much closer than was favorable.

Daud hated this truth as much as he suspected Corvo did, if not more—but it _was_ the truth and he wasn’t one to deny facts. 

Corvo thanked him, yes, even seemed genuinely grateful, but that did little to lift the weight of guilt that made its home on Daud’s chest long ago.

Some small, selfish part of him clutched those two simple words of gratitude in a death grip and buried it into the clutters of thoughts and sentiments that stayed tangled up deep inside him for decades now.

Some other small part of him wished that Corvo had never found out about any of this—nothing could redeem the murder of an empress and now these news of his daughter’s rescue only added confusion and complication to that stale but well-deserved bitter loathing towards the one responsible. In most of its forms, hatred was a simple, straight-forward emotion, and Daud appreciated that about it.

But the more visceral, impressionable part caught a tiny spark of relief at the disclosure of years-old information, but Daud was too tired to address it, so he took another drag instead.

When he turned his gaze to Karnaca’s shores he spotted a small vessel advancing towards the _Dreadful Wale._ Some minutes later, when the cigarette was burned down to the filter and thrown into the waters overboard, the skiff docked and two women stepped on deck.

Billie, with her eye trained for detail and a keen nose for anything out of the ordinary on her ship, took only a few seconds to spot Daud standing on the bridge deck. Alexandria Hypatia, carrying a lidless crate with something, that Daud couldn’t make out from this distance, inside it, looked in the same direction and locked eyes with him only for a moment, before quickly turning around with a doctor’s air of professional coolness and disappearing belowdecks with a purposeful stride. 

Billie didn’t bother walking all the way up the stairs, because in the next second the air next to Daud formed her distorted reflection and then he felt a puff of cold when she materialized in the marked spot.

“Up already?” she said, notes of nostalgic teasing sneaking into her age-hardened voice. “It’s only four o’clock!”

Daud let out a soft huff through his nose and eyed her ebony arm. “Feels the same as it used to?”

“Better,” Billie leaned on the railing next to him and twirled the hand aimlessly in the air. “It’s tangible. Something of my own.”

Daud nodded. It was a good feeling, he knew. As much as he hated the idea of Billie being tangled up with the Outsider again—what’s more, directly this time—he couldn’t help but be glad for her newfound sensation of powerful independence. Even despite the fact that that “independence” was mainly an illusion that disguised the shackles that the ties to the Void actually were.

But maybe, with caution, those ties could do good things. Billie had every chance to prove that theory, and he could only hope she’d make good use of those chances.

The subject of his thoughts made a sniffing noise with her nose and furrowed her brow. 

“Have you been smoking?”

Ah—Daud didn’t account for the heightened senses that the Void granted.

“Uh,” he said eloquently, “I found a couple of cigs in the main hold—hope you don’t mind.”

Billie looked at him with a widened eye. “You found cigarettes on the ship?!”

“Yes…?”

She scoffed with incredulity and shook her head. “Anton…”

“They’re his?”

“He used to dabble now and again. I thought I made him stop—won’t do him any good with his age and condition.”

Daud raised an eyebrow, wondering if Billie was going to start scolding him as well, but he supposed they had a different kind of relationship.

“Speaking of which,” she continued, and reached into the pocket of her coat before pulling out a thin carton and handing it to him. “A little reunion gift, maybe? Something told me you haven’t dropped that nasty habit of yours.”

A small, easy smile spread across his face as he took the pack from her and examined it. Moray cigarettes—cheap, smooth on the inhale, and easy to fish out of every other pocket on the street. 

“Look who’s talking,” he rumbled. “I hear you’ve been smoking pipes yourself.”

“That’s different.”

“Oh, really now? I don’t think it is. Worse, if anything.”

Billie rolled her eye and Daud couldn’t help a grin—it felt easy to chat like this, so easy to get back into this long-forgotten flow. Despite everything, it was as though no time has passed at all.

Despite everything, this was still his Billie.

“Anyway. Thank you,” he said, pocketing the pack. “Really needed that.”

Billie flashed a teasing smirk. “Sorry I couldn’t get my hands on those fancy cigars you used to like—coin’s a bit short.”

Daud scoffed at that, and Billie took a second to look him over. 

“You’ve been up for a while? Did you see Lord Attano?”

Did he, indeed.

“He’s asleep.”

Billie nodded, and after a minute of comfortable silence her expression turned somber.

“Daud.”

Just by her tone, he knew what she was about to bring up. Either way, it wasn’t difficult to guess.

“Back then— you said you forgave me, but I—” she looked out onto the water, likely avoiding his eyes. To make it easier on her, he looked straight ahead of him as well.

Neither of them were used to heart-to-hearts—back then, they never had much need of those talks.

A part of Daud wished it’d had just stayed that way.

“I never apologized properly then. I mean, I did, but— It wasn’t right. I don’t know how you could—”

“I did.”

Billie visibly swallowed.

“I did forgive you,” Daud repeated. “It’s done. Put it behind you.”

Easier said than done, that was. He knew that like no one else.

But, back on that roof in the Flooded District, surrounded by Overseers and Whalers, the second that Billie’s face contorted with fear and remorse over what she’s done Daud forgave her without a second thought.

How could he not, when all of what happened was partly his fault. When he could have been a better teacher, a better leader, could have paid more attention to what was going on—and did not.

“I can’t,” she continued after a moment. “You taught me that apologies were just drivel. But, now, I don’t think that’s true. So, Daud—” she turned to look at him then, and he returned her gaze. The intensity of it almost burned. “Now, all these years later—I’m sorry. Truly, I am. I was a fucking idiot and I regret it like nothing else.”

Daud didn’t break eye contact, even when hers wavered, just barely. “And once again, all these years later,” he echoed, “I forgive you.”

“How can you?!”

Billie gasped lightly, as if surprised at her own exclamation, then collected herself.

“I did unimaginable things. I sold us out, I betrayed you and all those other kids—how can you just forgive? Yes, you let me leave, gave me a chance at another life, but I just can’t wrap my mind around how you can possibly not hold any sort of grudge.”

Her chest heaved with the weight of all the long-suppressed remorse and her eye gleamed with feverish desperation as she silently demanded an answer from him with just as much fire as he remembered her possessing.

When Daud spoke, his voice came out even raspier than normal.

“Because it’s easier that way.” He told her the truth. “Because sometimes it’s much easier to forgive others than to forgive yourself, I think.”

Billie looked like she yearned to say something, but didn’t. Or couldn’t.

“Because,” he sighed and went on, “when I saw that remorse in your eyes I knew it was going to eat you slowly from the inside for the rest of your days. And— even if you don’t accept it, even if you don’t think you deserve it— if my forgiveness can make bearing it easier, then I’ll give it over and over again.”

She shook her head lightly, but Daud continued before she could interrupt.

“We can’t change the past, Billie. We can bend time, we can tear through it, we can shove it down the black-eyed bastard’s throat—but we can’t change what’s been done. There’s no use in mulling over what’s already happened.”

Billie searched his eyes, then looked out onto the water again.

“Easy to say.”

“That’s right. But we try, however we can.”

Silence settled on the deck, and the rustling of waves and cries of seagulls were the only sounds that broke it. Daud looked out on the horizon, blinking when the wind stung his eyes and, after a few moments, felt a weight pressing against his shoulder.

For all of their long-established lack of tactile expression of emotions, Billie was leaning her forehead on his shoulder in a gesture reminiscent of a soft but stubborn headbutt of a baby goat, and Daud felt a bittersweet smile tugging at his lips. 

“Another thing I regret,” she said, her voice thick and partly muffled by the leather of his coat, “is, how in those few years that I saw you as a challenge for me to beat, I completely robbed myself of the companionship you offered.”

Daud scoffed softly. “And I guess I should have been more attentive and insistent with those offers, hm?”

Billie pushed out a heavy sigh and Daud wrapped an arm around her shoulders. 

*

He was in his cabin again.

Corvo blinked his eyes at the ceiling in confusion, then looked around the room and finally remembered everything that happened. 

He did not, however, remember how exactly he ended up back here, but he chose not to think too much about that.

He didn’t know what time it was, but the ship was quiet and he could hear no voices outside, so he assumed it was nighttime.

Setting his feet on the floor, the surface felt colder than usual—strange, how he could feel it even through the soles of his boots. Maybe he simply got cold in his sleep—night temperatures out on the ocean tended to drop quite low. 

With his mind clear and his body rejuvenated, despite the deathly and unnatural quiet, he was drawn, as if by some invisible force, to get up and walk out the door. 

That invisible force became clear enough when he stepped out of his cabin and found that the hallway ended with a precipice into nothing, and the remainders of the crumbling walls morphed and entwined with thick branches and tendrils and wrapped around one another, forming a tunnel that enclosed a stone staircase. 

Corvo hissed out a slow sigh. The Void again.

Only, it felt different.

He made his way up the stairs and into the expanse of unnatural, to a point when it glowed with nonexistent but nonetheless visible light, emptiness, then stepped onto a wide island of black stone and heard someone else’s footsteps. He frowned at that. The Outsider never _walked_ —not with any sound, at least—he floated, the conjured manifestations of his legs only mimicking the movements made by humans.

When a dark haired woman dressed in feathers and roses and rich black fabrics stepped out from behind a jagged pillar and slowly strutted towards him in all her regally pompous glory, Corvo’s lips curled back in a snarl.

“Delilah.”

“Lord Protector.” Her reply came with a half-smile and a fleeting glance that was soon turned to the nothingness around them. “Surprised I can pull you into this place?”

Wonderful. As if everything else wasn’t enough.

Needless to say, the fact that she possessed this kind of power was very alarming.

“Somehow, no,” he growled, but the witch only threw him another glance as she began to pace leisurely around the platform. 

“The Outsider marked me long ago,” she said, holding up her gloved left hand for him to see as if the symbol was supposed to bleed through the fabric. Corvo couldn’t tell if she was also just a projection or if her physical form was right here, in the same dimension. “I made you flee your precious Tower and turned Emily into cold stone. How difficult for you.”

Corvo only narrowed his eyes—the overly-exaggerated, condescending manner in which she spoke made it difficult to be provoked. Maybe that was simply her nature—or maybe she did that on purpose, building a protective bubble of illusions around herself, making others purposefully underestimate her. Perhaps that was why she seemed to lay out all her plans in the open, at least up to this point—so there would be a lesser chance of anyone digging deeper to uncover her real intentions.

Perhaps she learned her lesson from fifteen years ago.

“What do you want?” he asked, not in his most polite tone, despite feeling that she was going to tell him anyway.

“I want to tell you a secret, Lord Protector,” she drawled, slowly, mockingly. “When I was young, sweet Jessamine and I were close as sisters, sharing that secret.” She put a finger to her lips and walked closer, but not close enough for Corvo to reach out and wrap his hand around her throat. She seemed to notice his growing scowl and responded to that with a light smirk, but after a moment her expression darkened and sharpened, akin to the very stone in the Void she inhabited. “Emperor Kaldwin,” she hissed, “had another daughter. Born in shame to a kitchen maid.”

Her form erupted in a flash of light and she was gone. 

But she was still here, Corvo could feel it—he needed only to find her. 

_Another daughter._ It just didn’t sit right with him. As much as he wanted to throw it aside, label it a lie of a a power maniac’s deranged mind, he left the thought in the back of his mind for the time being and pressed on, climbing the stone ledges and suspended steps and walking for what seemed like forever. 

“During the day, Jessamine and I played games in the Tower,” suddenly, Delilah’s voice resounded above and behind and below him all at once, before finally Corvo spotted her lounging on a newly formed suspended platform. She cast her glance on his approaching form, as if to make sure that he was listening, then looked out onto the expanse of the Void beyond the stone. “But at night I’d go back to the servants’ quarters, to cockroaches and thin gruel.”

She disappeared again and rematerialized immediately after, several meters behind Corvo’s right shoulder. He raised an eyebrow—perhaps she was pretending to be the Outsider. 

“While Jessamine, a year younger than I, went to court every day, I was not allowed to. Emperor Daddy would visit and tell me if I was good, next year I’d be old enough to come to court, to be a princess. That went on for a few years. Then one day pretty Jessamine broke something worth a fortune, and the Spymaster caught us. She claimed I did it, and he whipped me in the garden house until I bled.”

Corvo frowned. Of that, Hiram Burrows was certainly capable—Jessamine’s rule, at least, held him back from his more… old-fashioned methods of punishment in which, for all his obsession with order and cleanliness, he was known to find some sick sort of pleasure.

“My mother lost her kitchen job and that night we were out on the streets with no place to sleep. Mother and I saw the nastiest parts of Dunwall, ending up in debtors’ prison. Jessamine died quick on an assassin’s blade, but my mother lingered for weeks after a fat guard broke her jaw.”

Corvo ground his teeth at the unsolicited reminder that lacked any and all respect, and Delilah jutted out her hip as her expression morphed into a patronizing frown. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. Your sweetheart barely even suffered! I’m sure you can thank Daud for that—such a fine, clean job he did. It was a shame I wasn’t there to witness it—I expect it was a true work of art, perhaps even his best.”

Corvo’s muscles suddenly screamed when he tried to move—throw himself at her, more like—and was physically unable to.

Delilah huffed a low giggle and walked closer into his space, hooking a finger under his jaw, to which Corvo could do nothing but scowl in disdain. He was somehow trapped in empty space—and he didn’t like it one bit.

“You can’t hurt me, _Lord Protector.”_ Her smile was so sickly sweet it was maddening. “Right here—I make the rules. I decide where you go— _when_ you go—when you’re able to speak and when you can do nothing but watch and listen, like an obedient servant that you are.” So he _could_ hurt her in this Void-like place—only, this was her conjured domain and, at least at the moment, she controlled all its aspects. Having her this close and being powerless to do anything was simply infuriating, and she knew it and reveled in it. She dragged the tip of her finger along the bottom of his jaw, the nail scraping the skin and pressing in sharply right before it slipped off the chin. Corvo held in a light hiss—he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. 

“You poor, loyal lapdog of the crown,” she hummed to herself and stepped back, looking him over. “Perhaps, when I’m done with your little Emily, I’ll find a good use for you.”

“You won’t touch her,” he hissed through gritted teeth as soon as he found his voice again—Delilah wanted some conversation, it seemed. Staying silent just to spite her, however, didn’t seem all that exciting.

“I will. I may have made mistakes a decade and a half ago, but now...” Corvo visibly tensed at the reference and she raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh. You _know.”_

Corvo wished for nothing more than to wrap his fingers around her thin neck, and Delilah must have felt it, because the invisible strain on his body suddenly grew.

“I’m so glad you know about that, Corvo. Now you understand how devoted I am to my goals. And no one will stand in my way this time.”

“Not even Daud?”

The words tore out of his mouth of their own volition but Corvo did not regret them in the slightest when Delilah’s expression darkened. She narrowed her eyes dangerously and he wondered just how much the notion of her failure to possess Emily’s body ruffled her feathers.

“Ah, that’s right,” she said slowly, almost thoughtfully. “My little birds did tell me that the Knife broke out of captivity. Your doing, I assume?”

Corvo stayed silent, searching for the cracks in her composure.

“Well here’s the thing, dear.” Hints of cold seeped into her voice, betraying her calm. “With the armies that are being raised in my name as we speak, none of your or your friends’ black magic tricks will matter when they lie dead at your feet when I’m done with this mess your sweetheart has created.”

Scowling at her, Corvo had to admit to the tingle of satisfaction he felt at the way Delilah seemed almost threatened.

“Jessamine meant you no harm,” he said.

Delilah laughed at that. “Poor Corvo, so blinded by love. So unwilling to see the truth, that his sweet, sweet Jessamine wasn’t as pure of heart as he thought.”

“She was just a kid.” Either way, Corvo doubted that any of what Delilah was telling him held even a shred of truth.

“Ah, yes. Just a kid who robbed me of my home and made me beg and starve with rats in the streets.”

“Children don’t understand the concept of consequences; she wouldn’t have wanted to have you thrown out.” 

“Pathetic. You defend her, but did she ever realize what misery her _childish_ lie brought upon my mother and I? Did she ever apologize, tell the truth, beg her dear daddy to allow us back in the Tower? No. No, my dear Corvo, she did nothing of the sort.” Delilah grimaced with scorn. “I was never a sister to her. She always knew what I was. She always treated me as nothing more than a servant, only worth her time when she was bored with the endless sea of entertainment bestowed on a princess.”

Corvo ground his teeth in annoyed frustration. This was ridiculous. In all the years that he’s known her, right from their first meeting when she was only twelve, Jessamine Kaldwin was one of the most kind-hearted and caring people he knew. “Lies,” he growled. “Lies and slander.”

Delilah laughed, cold and cruel. “You’re no better than her—I should have known. My dear, you might want to consider opening those eyes of yours sometime. Perhaps then you will see something beyond your arrogant delusions. But we’re partly the same, you and I, no?”

_“No.”_

“...We both built ourselves up from nothing. Street urchins who clawed our way to greatness with only grit and merit as our tools. When my mother died, they threw me out of the debtors’ prison. I got by, washing bedsheets in a brothel, painting on the side. Then, Anton Sokolov took me as a student—that’s the polite word for it, anyway. I looked up at the lights of Dunwall Tower and swore revenge for everything those royals did to me.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because, when your daughter’s life slips through your fingers and the Kaldwin line is bled to the last drop, you’ll learn what it’s like to pay for the sins of your loved ones.”

She disgusted him—so full of spiteful, empty loathing. “You won’t get any pity from me, witch.”

“Save it, I need no one’s pity. I need only loyalty and utter devotion from all who serve me.” She flicked her wrist at him. “I expect I’ll have that from you before long.”

He couldn’t believe the arrogance rolling off of her like a stench. “I will hunt you down,” Corvo hissed. “And you’ll wish you’d have stayed in that brothel.”

“Just look at all that delicious anger.” Delilah stepped closer. “But you must understand, Corvo—you won’t be having it easy. I was crafty even before the Outsider marked me, and survived the worst the Empire could offer.” Somehow, Corvo seriously doubted that. “And now,” her lips stretched in a wicked smile, “it’s your turn.”

“I hope you choke on your own spite.”

Delilah only flashed another smirk at him, but her eyes were stone cold. “You’ll learn to address me with respect yet, Lord Protector.”

“Keep dreaming.”

The palpable tension that held him in place gave another sudden tug, as if in a warning, and then Delilah granted him a full smile.

“I absolutely will, my dear. Because now, my dreams are finally coming true.”

Corvo flinched and squinted his eyes when a bright flash swallowed her form and simmered down to a spinning vortex at the edge of the platform. The restraining tension released him in the next instant and he gasped as he stumbled, his limbs caught off guard by the sudden ability to move. 

He ground his teeth and, not wishing to waste any more time in this forsaken place, blinked into the vortex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to adventuring!!?
> 
> Help me I'm having too much Daud and Billie feelings


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo life got kinda busy all of a sudden so updates are probably gonna be coming out a bit slower, at least in this next month or so://

Waking up felt as sudden as barreling into a wall at full force (not that he knew what that felt like, but he could imagine) and Corvo didn’t even get a chance to properly open his eyes when his body sat up in the cot as if by its own will.

Thoughts of his recent meeting with Delilah came flooding into his mind and soon enough, the worry was echoed by the gentle but insistent beating resounding from across the room. Corvo wasn’t even wearing his jacket but he nonetheless heard, _felt_ the Heart as if it was right at his breast still—or as if it was a rune, calling out with its strange song, beckoning him. He got up and walked over to the chair, dug through the couple of articles of clothing that were thrown onto its back in exhausted carelessness and reached into his jacket’s inner breast pocket to pull out the beating contraption. 

He stumbled back when a small, spectral figure appeared out of thin air, and she was right in front of him, she looked so real— 

The Outsider showed him this kind of vision before, when he gave him his Mark back.

 _“I’m with you, even in the Void.”_ The Heart spoke while Jessamine’s image floated, mute and barely moving, its slow and unseeing blinks the only signs of life—if it could even be called that. Without so much as a portrait of her, Corvo couldn’t decide if this visual projection brought him solace or just served as a reminder of how artificial, how dead the Void sometimes seemed. How dead Jessamine was, trapped within it. _“If only I could do more…”_

“Jessamine?” Why make an appearance? Why come to him now and not all those years ago, back when the wound was still fresh, when hearing her echoing voice in his hand wasn’t enough, when he would have given anything just to see her again, even as an empty, spectral illusion such as this?

Asking the figure any questions seemed useless, even irrelevant— whatever the Void wanted him to hear, he would hear. The Heart only spoke in the moment, only gave voice to its short, cryptic expressions of all-knowing that did so little to ease the deep-buried longing, leaving him feeling hollow instead, more often than not. Sometimes, Corvo found himself wishing that he never had received the Heart in the first place, and he hated himself for ever having to feel these tiny specks of rejection of this gift, of this last reminder of her. Sometimes, he found himself wondering if the voice in the organ was truly Jessamine’s at all, if this so-called essence had a free will— _her_ will—and wasn’t just a cruel, in its frightening accuracy, parody. “Delilah’s stronger now,” was all he managed to say to her. To it.

_“Am I to blame for Delilah’s bitterness?”_

These moments—these exact moments when it seemed that the piece of Jessamine trapped in the mechanically enhanced organ was real and genuine, hurt more than they probably should have and Corvo could never understand why wistfulness had to be so painful.

“Of course not.”

_“But you saw the truth.”_

“ _Is_ it the truth?”

_“From her perspective, yes.”_

He heaved a sigh, not even bothering to ask her to elaborate as he knew she wouldn’t. Taking Delilah’s tales at face value wasn’t the best option, but he supposed he could see Jessamine having a half-sister as fairly believable.

He could only wonder why she’s never told him.

“No. You’re not to blame,” he said simply in place of voicing everything else on his mind. “Delilah’s driving all of this.”

_”Our decisions have weight. I feel my time drawing to an end. Soon.”_

Corvo stared at the spectral figure, frowning as though it could see and respond accordingly. 

“What does that mean?”

But the only response he received were shadowy flakes of blue that scattered and dissolved into the air as the figure faded away and the Heart gave a final beat, the little glass window pushing out a soft pulse of light before coming to a still. 

Corvo rubbed his face and sighed, giving himself a moment.

The Heart only brought brief comfort, whenever it did.

*

A couple of rats that skittered by broke the slumbering quiet of the boat when Corvo came out of his cabin. 

He decided he would deal with them later—vermin glutting at their food reserves was the last thing the _Dreadful Wale’s_ crew needed.

The door to Alexandria’s cabin was open and yellow light streamed into the dimness of the hallway—based on the time and overall level of illumination the sun didn’t rise yet, so everyone else was likely still asleep.

He really did sleep for more than half of the day, Corvo concluded. Although, he had no way of knowing for how long he was a guest in Delilah’s Void, so he supposed he had a valid excuse. In any case, despite the overall grogginess, he felt he got as much rest as he physically could for the moment, so it would have to be enough.

“Lord Attano.” Alexandria popped her head out into the hallway, evidently having heard footsteps. “Good morning. How are you feeling?”

Corvo preferred not to clarify whether she just found his unusually long sleep concerning or was aware of his recent collapse. He hoped that that particular occurrence stayed between Daud and him.

...So much for trying to not think about everything that’s happened. 

“Fine,” he said, casual but quizzical, as if the question came in a bit of surprise. He arched an eyebrow at her. “And how are _you_ feeling?”

Alexandria looked at him for a moment and then inclined her head in a polite nod. “Good, thank you. Did I wake you? I was just packing my things.”

Corvo shook his head at the question and, taking her disappearance back into her cabin as an invitation, approached and stood in the doorway. 

“You’re leaving?” he asked even as he swept his gaze over the few reasonably-sized boxes covering the table’s surface.

“I’m afraid so. I got into contact with the Miners Family Committee; I’ll be meeting with some associates in the Dust District.” 

Whether that meant that she has already secured her place of stay or not, Corvo didn’t know. But he also wasn’t one to sway somebody with a clearly made up mind.

Still, seeing her go was in no way pleasant, and not just for the fact that Corvo’s grown used to her in this short span of time. It felt as though the last sane—despite her involuntarily murderous past—person around was leaving. “You don’t have to rush. There’s a place for you here.” 

“I can help people in the city, Lord Attano. Much more than here.”

Corvo nodded, and Alexandria almost hesitated to turn her eyes back to the crate she was working on packing, giving the impression that she suppressed the urge to say something more.

“There’s something else, is there?” he asked, fully aware of the fact that recent developments that beset this poor boat were not exactly to the doctor’s liking. Of course, she was entirely too polite to say anything about it without being prompted.

She threw him a glance, then continued working. “No, nothing.”

“The measures we’re taking are necessary, Alexandria,” he said, as though there was a need to justify himself. “I understand you may not be comfortable with that, but—”

“And are you?” She turned fully to face him then, fixing her quizzical gaze on his. The question sounded easy and even nonchalant, but somehow it managed to root Corvo to the spot while he struggled to think of a suitable answer.

A simple ‘no’ did very little to encompass the utter mess that his thoughts on the matter have become in the past two days.

“We need all the help we can get,” he replied instead, as unconvincing and question-dodging as it was. 

“All due respect, Lord Attano, but responding to malignancy with violence and hostility has never brought about anything good. I fail to see how exactly the Knife is of any help here.”

He looked back at her, thin-lipped, not sure whether he was subconsciously taking her view as an accusation, felt slightly ashamed, or whether he was even agreeing or disagreeing with her. Possibly both. 

“But I know you have your reasons,” she continued. “I just don’t have to understand them.”

“So you’re running away, then.”

All the different reasons could have been boiled down to something as simple as her not being comfortable with sharing the same space with one of the Empire’s most notorious contract killers. Corvo wouldn’t blame her. 

And that was exactly what Daud was to her as well as so many other people, wasn’t it. Just a murderer, just a shell of a man that he could have been. No one knew the full story and it wasn’t Corvo’s place to enlighten them. 

“No,” Alexandria assured, more politely than Corvo thought he probably deserved, “I already told you. There’s work for me in the Dust District—I’m needed there. I’ve been trying to help miners for years, I can help those at Shindaerey Peak.” She turned her attention back to the stack of papers she was forming on her desk. “Whatever is happening in the world now—it’s bigger than you or me. We’re just lucky enough to be able to do something about it, as small as it may be in the grand scheme of things.”

She wrapped and tied a piece of thin rope around the stack, then squeezed it into the crate and let out a sigh. “Of course, I can only hope that whatever _you’re_ doing will have a noticeable impact. Dealing with usurpers, trying to get the Empire back on its feet after it’s been drowning in the gutter—it’s admirable. I will always be rooting for your cause, Lord Attano, as I will always be grateful to you for what you did to me. You could have just killed me, it would have been so simple. But you didn’t. You took the difficult route—the right one.

“You’re a good man, Lord Protector, and I don’t think there’s anything or anyone that would have an easy time changing that, but just… be careful. For your own sake.”

Corvo watched her picking up thin vials and carefully placing them in the bottom of the box, then nodded—mostly to himself, as she wasn’t looking at him.

“After everything that’s happened, I’m glad you’re getting back on track so quickly. I hope you know that.”

“I do,” she turned to smile at him. “And who knows—perhaps we’ll meet again.”

Corvo responded with a small and bittersweet smile of his own. “I certainly hope so.”

*

Corvo would be lying if he said that sitting in one room with a pair of heavily Void-touched and a modern genius wasn’t utterly strange.

But, he supposed, the way that all four of them sat in silent, collective confusion felt weirdly companionable.

“She pulled you _into_ the Void?” Billie finally echoed his words back to him like she didn’t hear him right, with more mistrust in her voice than Corvo thought he deserved by now. Sokolov sat on his respective couch, rubbing his temples and staring somewhere at the floor. Daud only narrowed his eyes, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.

“That’s what I said,” Corvo grunted. “It was some version of the Void that she could control, and I doubt that she intends to use it simply for long-distance chats with her adversaries.”

“Now what the fuck,” Billie dragged out, “are we to do with this information, exactly?”

Corvo sighed and turned to the natural philosopher. “Anton, Delilah was your student once. Was there anything… strange about her back then?”

“Oh, yes,” Sokolov leaned forward and frowned, be it in a struggle to remember or in a sort of distaste. “She was terribly obsessed with the occult—” he swept a glance over the other three in the room, “meaning no offense. My own interest with it at the time could not even compare with her, dare I say, _passion,_ and she wasn’t very good at hiding her… devotion to the Outsider.”

“I’m just trying to gauge the approximate time she got Marked,” Corvo said.

“Well, now that you mention it, about five years after having taken her in, one day she packed her things and then just up and left. By that time I was happy to be rid of her, but I’ve never seen her quite so crazed until then.”

“So it’s possible that she got her Mark and then left your apprenticeship right away? She had to have had formed her coven soon afterwards.”

Billie folded her arms. “Why does it matter when she got it?”

“I don’t know; I’m just trying to gather all the facts I can. Maybe the amount of power you have is relative to the time you’ve had it—the longer you have the Mark, the more it grows—” Corvo turned to Daud at that. “You’ve had yours long enough, probably longer than Delilah, and what have you got to show for it? Maybe you’re using it wrong.”

“Please,” Daud snorted. “The amount of time makes no difference—she could access the Void whenever she wanted even fifteen years ago, I already told you that.”

“Fine, but how can she pull in others without the use of paintings—”

“Why are you so sure that she doesn’t use paintings anymore?”

“With the rate at which she seems to get stronger,” Billie agreed, “she could have easily enhanced the way she uses her artwork. So far she’s used it for Void portals and possession rituals, could it now be... some sort of long-distance, secondhand teleportation?”

Corvo grimaced. “That doesn’t make any sense—”

“When has black magic _ever_ made sense?”

“As this is all beyond my understanding,” Sokolov got his word in, “as well as beyond yours, evidently, I suggest we focus on something more straight-forward.”

“Right—Luca’s support of Delilah, for instance,” Daud said and took a sip of his coffee. “Or her other affiliates. Just a thought.” 

Sokolov got up with a grunt and walked over to his work area, picked up a pad of paper and a pencil and made his way back. Corvo pursed his lips and drummed his fingers on the table. They barely knew anything of anyone else’s involvement aside from what’s already been done as well as the Duke, who, at the moment, was untouchable. “Delilah’s magic plays a big part in all of this. We need to understand what she does in order to undo it.”

“You don’t need to _understand_ anything, you just have to find which plug to pull.”

Corvo shot Daud a glare but Sokolov interrupted before he could fling a snippy retort. “We need to start somewhere,” he sat back down and began immediate work on a loose sketch in his lap. “Back in Jindosh’s circus of a mansion, I saw things. He often had a visitor. Breanna Ashworth.”

_“Ashworth?!”_

Everyone turned their heads to Billie, who stood dumbfounded, eye wide. “Why haven’t I heard anything about this?”

Sokolov arched a brow in curiosity. “Evidently, you aren’t the only one with a hidden identity, Meagan. Breanna, as it seems, has been posing as the curator of the Royal Conservatory for a few years now.”

Corvo frowned at Billie. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“She was the co-founder of Delilah’s coven back in the day,” she said. “I can’t believe I missed her—”

“You didn’t have a good reason to look for her. Hiding in plain sight can sometimes be effective, especially in a place like this,” Daud rumbled from his seat, scratching his jaw. “We haven’t met, but I’ve heard of her. As far as I know, she’s completely devoted to Delilah.”

“She is,” Billie confirmed. “Or was, at least, but I doubt that’s changed. All the more reason to eliminate her.”

“Yes. Aside from all that,” Sokolov said as he squinted at the paper in front of him, then made several more fast marks, “apparently, she’s working on some device called the Oraculum.”

Billie frowned. “Is it completed?”

“I don’t think so, and now that Jindosh is out of commission...”

He soon handed the drawing to Billie, who took a moment to look it over and then pinned it up next to the more fully rendered portraits of Delilah and the Duke on the board.

Impressed with how quickly Sokolov managed to capture the life-like quality of the woman’s face from memory, Corvo narrowed his eyes at the paper. The curator looked stern, with a tight, slick top-knot of dark hair—he rubbed the bridge of his nose as he examined the sketch. Even with Delilah’s personal inventor out of the way, they couldn’t afford to let their guard down. “Can’t assume that the device isn’t a problem anymore, whatever it is. Looks like the work’s cut out for us.”

*

“Better not draw too much attention,” Billie had said, having resolved to stay with the skiff—she’d dropped them off at a small secluded dock in the Cyria Gardens, as bringing the _Dreadful Wale_ closer to the shore was awfully risky. “The two of you should be more than enough. If not, well—then you aren’t doing your jobs right.”

Daud had only scoffed and Corvo’d suppressed the urge to kindly thank her for the encouragement.

The journey through the Gardens was quiet as the two men transversed the roofs, evading the Grand Guard that littered the streets despite the late hour. It seemed that the guards’ numbers only doubled during the night shift, perhaps because during this time the Howlers came pouring out like swarms of rats. Needless to say, they were easy to avoid—for both the Masked Felon and the Knife of Dunwall eluding street gangs has become muscle memory a long, long time ego.

It didn’t take that long to get to the local Overseer outpost, though Corvo was surprised to find only one person inside. The man was slumped in a chair, snoring—a sleep dart ensured that he’d give them more than enough time to dig through the Abbey’s files.

Opposite of what looked like the main desk, a large map of the Royal Conservatory hung on the wall—the Abbey kept its eyes on it, it seemed. Corvo stayed a moment to examine the schematic. Four floors (not counting the basement), and lots of rooms. A huge hall that took up a good half of the floors’ plan seemed to take up three stories. Lots of open space, it looked like—whether that was a blessing or a curse, well, he supposed they’d find out soon enough. 

“Byrne thinks Ashworth is a threat.” Corvo turned his head when Daud broke the silence, finding him standing at the desk with his eyes glued to a sheet of paper in his hand. “He’s prioritizing the Howlers, but he thinks there’s something fishy about the reports from the Oracular Order, implying that Ashworth may be involved somehow. And, well, if you ask me, it would make sense for Delilah to try to influence the blind sect.” 

Corvo raised an eyebrow at the choice of word. “ _Infiltrate,_ more like.” 

Daud hummed in agreement, then put the paper aside and swept a glance over the desk before pressing a button on the nearby standing audiograph.

 _”Breanna Ashworth,”_ Liam Byrne’s voice enunciated, _”curator of the Royal Conservatory. For a while I’ve believed Ashworth has some connection to the occult in Karnaca.”_

So madam curator wasn’t all that careful with her affairs, was she, Corvo thought as he walked around the office. He took a peek into the back room and found a pantry, where he grabbed a hunk of rye bread from a shelf. 

_”Something is happening that I don’t understand. The Overseers are the forward face of the Abbey, but equally important are our sisters from the Oracular Order. To be direct, I suspect something is wrong within their sect. Subtle changes to the types of proclamations they’ve been making; small but troubling deviations from tradition.”_

Corvo pushed up his mask to his forehead and took a large bite as he walked closer to where Daud was still standing and leaning on the desk, and frowned at the audiograph with suspecting curiosity as he chewed. 

_”But publicly saying anything along those lines will get me accused of heresy by my rivals within the Abbey. Is it possible that Ashworth has infiltrated the Oracular Order?”_

The recording stopped playing and Daud breathed a soft huff. “Look at that—even the Vice Overseer himself isn’t safe in his own flock.” 

Corvo picked at his bread with a frown, then ripped away a small piece and popped it into his mouth before setting the rest on the desk and scratching his jaw in thought. “Seems like the Abbey’s not of much use here, then. A pity—if no one but Byrne is concerned, then whatever Ashworth is doing won’t be met with much resistance.” 

“Just what is the world coming to… heresy running rampant everywhere.” 

Corvo couldn’t help a small snort. “Things have been spinning out of the Abbey’s control for a while now; think the whole thing’s just gonna blow over soon enough?” Byrne sounded fairly assured in the recording—Corvo didn’t doubt that the Vice Overseer would’ve loved to see Ashworth’s head on a spike. If Corvo’s own head wasn’t under the same threat, he could have even considered bringing it to him as a gift. 

“Can’t see why not. Certainly wouldn’t hurt, seeing as they’ve always been a nuisance. A useless one, at that.” Daud hitched his shoulder in a shrug and reached for the bread that Corvo left on the table, tearing off a piece for himself. 

He’s barely eaten in the past day, at least as far as Corvo saw—which wasn’t saying much, considering how long he’s been out cold.

“So what are you thinking,” Daud fixed his eyes on Corvo and said in between bites, “head straight for the Conservatory now?” 

For a split second, Corvo found himself surprised that Daud was asking for his opinion in the first place, but quickly dismissed it as practicality of needing to be clear on the plan.

Even despite the previous escapades with Daud and Billie, realizing that he wasn’t exactly used to working with someone else was a strange feeling.

He took a moment to frown at— something, an undefined spot somewhere on the desk. “I suppose so,” he said. While, technically, the situation demanded haste, the weight of the unknown was pressing down harder and harder and it was all too easy to start finding easy distractions, something that pushed the responsibility deeper and deeper to the back of his mind.

“You’re hesitating.”

Corvo didn’t realize he’d fallen silent until Daud voiced the observation. He frowned again, shaking his head. “I’m not, I’m just—” but he was, and he felt it more acutely than he cared to admit. “I just don’t know what we’ll find.”

“And when has that ever stopped you?”

He inadvertently raised his eyes to meet Daud’s. The question was startling, it settled in the air between them with a palpable weight, and Corvo wasn’t sure if he was even supposed to answer it.

He was almost entirely sure that he hasn’t yet seen the worst Delilah had to offer and self-assurances like _this is just another usurper, you’ve dealt with such before; just root out the rats, one by one, step by step_ barely helped anything when at the fore of his mind was the fear of whatever it was the witch was planning on the sly, of what more she was capable of, how that could further affect Emily’s life that was already under much greater threat than was acceptable.

Uncovering all of that, digging out the horrible truth, whatever it may be, felt like a risk on its own. It felt like it could wake the sleeping beast, set in motion some monstrous plan that stayed hidden and was, thus, harmless for the moment.

It was the stupidest thing Corvo had thought all day and he wanted to kick himself for it.

“It’s not that simple,” his reply was partly driven by stubbornness, as the idea of anything slowing him down didn’t sit well with him.

“But it is,” Daud pressed, “it’s only as simple as just going in and getting it done.”

“How in the Void do you know that we won’t accidentally set something off? _I_ don’t know what the Oraculum does, _you_ don’t know what the Oraculum does—for all we know, it could be a grenade just waiting for someone to pull out the pin, and who better to do that than us? Delilah knows we’re coming for her, I wouldn’t assume that she’s not expecting us and hasn’t been preparing.”

“So what are you proposing, then,” Daud raised an eyebrow and tilted his head in a lazy manner, “just leave it be? Let it all sort itself out? I suppose, in that case, I’m free to go back to where you found me—”

Corvo caught the histrionic boredom in his voice and narrowed his eyes to show that he was not in the least amused. “I’m just saying,” he gritted out, irked by the very notion that Daud would even suggest that he’d sit around and do nothing, “that we should be careful in whatever it is we’re doing here.”

“Yes, well, if your version of being careful is tarrying, then I can’t help you much there.” 

“There’s a difference between tarrying and thinking ahead.”

“I wouldn’t call it thinking, I’d say you’re just wasting time.”

Corvo hissed out a slow breath. “You are insufferable.”

“And you are ridiculously easy to rile up.” Corvo could have sworn he saw the corner of Daud’s mouth shifting up into a tiny smirk and that in itself was enough to make him want to open his mouth and bark something in retaliation, but that would prove Daud’s (obviously unreasonable) point. So, he just stomped up to the desk, snatched the remaining bread and stuffed it into his mouth, not tearing his glare away from the other man.

“You gonna gobble down the Overseers’ entire bread supply and make them starve? For shame.”

“Don’t worry about them,” Corvo replied whilst chewing. “I’m just storing up on some more energy so I can kick your ass when we’re done with Ashworth.”

“Step out of this damned building and start moving your legs in the right direction first, and then we’ll talk.”

Corvo shot him one last glare, then took his sweet time chewing just to make a point before pulling his mask back down onto his face and, ignoring his companion’s soft huff, blinked up to the dark outside through the open window in the roof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daud's here to pick up Billie's Corvo-sassing baton whenever she's not around... gotta keep the Lord Protector occupied, right?


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for everyone who's been sticking around and reading and leaving feedback, you guys are great! I didn't really expect to write more than like 5k of this thing but it's been a really fun ride (still is, I mean). Thanks again and hope you all continue to enjoy!<3

If poking at Corvo’s pride got him to stop wallowing in his own thoughts and insecurities and instead made him focus on the task at hand, then Daud wasn’t in the least sorry for his attitude.

The Lord Protector was right, of course—they had no way of knowing what exactly they were getting into and things could spiral out of control and go horribly wrong at any turn, but, as Daud found over the years, with a lack of information and thus a lack of a concrete plan, sometimes it was better to simply pretend to know what was going on and hope one’s improvisation skills would not fail this time. Especially when everything one cared about was on the line. Of course, worrying tended to spark a healthy paranoia that sharpened the senses and promoted caution, but at the same time it also usually settled with a crushing weight on the shoulders, and Corvo could not afford to falter now, even a little.

They didn’t get far from the Overseer enclave when Daud held in a hiss as a distinct shrill pierced his mind, somewhat like what he imagined a bolt to the head would feel.

On the one hand, he had no doubt about the disturbance’s source—he still heard the call of runes once in a while and ignored them on principle (and even if he didn’t, either way, they wouldn’t bring him any more benefits at this point). On the other hand, though, this particular sound was entirely something else. It was ruthless, like an itch in his brain that he could not possibly reach, and it was growing louder and more annoying with each minute that they moved farther from its rough location.

Corvo exhibited no reaction whatsoever—did he not hear this wail of the Void?

Strange.

After a certain point Daud wanted to find that damned rune or whatever it was and crush it to dust, if only to just make the ringing in his head stop.

However, he thought then, no song of runes or bonecharms was capable of spreading to such distances; not as far as he knew. Outsider shrines were much more likely—and not even they could emit a sound so damn loud. Nonetheless, this thing he was dealing with was definitely a strange one, but, undoubtedly, a shrine.

For fuck’s sake.

Daud ground his teeth and hissed out a sigh when the headache gave no indication of planning to stop on its own. He looked over to Corvo’s crouched figure farther ahead on the rooftop’s edge, his attention fixed on the alley right below where quite a few Howlers carried out their nightly patrol. They littered the street and the balconies of the nearby buildings—this was their territory, it looked like. Getting around them would take a little caution.

“You find a way across,” Daud said when he walked closer, not too optimistic about not having to explain himself, “and I’ll go check the nearby buildings for anything we can use.”

He couldn’t see Corvo’s expression behind that dreadful mask of his (despite the familiarity it was still unnerving to see it in person all these years later, and though its wearer didn’t seek to stab him clean through the chest anymore, at least for the moment, the discomfort still remained), but he could all too easily imagine his suspecting scowl. He was probably debating whether he should let Daud out of his sight at all.

Corvo studied him for a moment that seemed to stretch on forever and Daud kept wondering just what exactly kept him rooted to the spot instead of just turning around and taking off like he announced, like he would do at any other time.

He clicked his tongue impatiently, trying not to wince at the way his head was splitting in half. “Don’t fret, I won’t run off on you.” 

“I seem to recall someone saying he wanted to keep on track.”

“Yes, well—last I checked, your little crew could also use some coin.”

Corvo’s shoulder hitched in a small shrug as he turned his attention back to the street below. “Fine,” he grumbled, displeasure clear in his voice. “Be quick about it.” Only with this affirmation, which Daud didn’t want to admit that felt a bit like permission, did his legs finally start moving and his Mark glowed as he disappeared into the night in the direction from which they came.

It didn’t take long to reach the zone where the ringing headache spiked up even more, if it was possible. Void Gaze confirmed not only the fact that the source was indeed a shrine, but also that he was very close to it, which was a relief.

It was stationed in an abandoned apartment where a huge hole was gaping the ceiling with bright purple light spilling out of it. The residence, if it could even be called that, was littered with tripwires and Daud scoffed to himself at the inhabiter’s paranoia as he stepped over and ducked under them, taking peeks into the trap launchers as he went. Incendiary bolts, mostly—useless in stealth, so he let them be. If Corvo wanted to carry volatiles on him, that was his business, but Daud didn’t favor the risk of getting himself blown up by any accidents. If they needed to blow something up, well, improvisation was still an option. Despite the supposed rationing, whale oil tanks were everywhere aplenty.

A couple of traps held regular bolts, however, which he added to his reserves before blinking upstairs where the rickety installation of a shrine was. The sight was nothing new—torn and faded purple drapes, a couple of old lanterns, familiar fanatical gibberish in dark paint on the walls… He really didn’t miss these places.

The mental ringing eased when he approached and eyed the pair of runes laid out on the table—these shards of the Void always tended to give a false sense of comfort were he to come closer, enticed to reach out and touch, replaced the shrill discomfort they created in the first place with soothing warmth.

Resistance was of no use, he knew; were he to walk away the ringing would return and would not stop. Daud could only hope that the Outsider wasn’t watching over this particular shrine, that he’d just be able to pick up the runes and leave right then, nice and painless.

The fact that he seemed to be the only one to hear this shrine from the start, however, did not leave him optimistic in that regard. The god played his tricks, but he had his reasons, as esoteric as they were.

The runes were begging for contact and Daud took off his gloves, dragged his thumb over the pattern carved into the surface, edges and curves and dents of which he knew by heart. A sudden spike of lightness brought on by the touch made him sigh and close his eyes, welcoming the tender, subtle euphoria that he missed so much in spite of himself.

Nothing else mattered as he rubbed the pads of his fingers slowly over the smoothened edges of the whalebone, taking in the material’s coolness for a few moments, hoping that this was the only thing that awaited him in this room and immediately seeing that hope squashed under the black-eyed bastard’s heel when a gust of unearthly cold blew in his face. He sighed again at that, now in premature irritation.

“Daud. My old friend.”

A weak, surrendering smile formed on Daud’s lips when he heard that all too familiar phrase in that all too familiar voice.

They were a lot of things, but _friends_ wasn’t one of them.

“It’s been a long time,” the Outsider continued as soon as Daud lazily opened his eyes to catch his black gaze.

“Not long enough.”

Letting the response hang in the air, the god moved away slightly as if to lead him further into the Void, but Daud stayed where he was.

“Corvo has found you, I see.”

No kidding? “Just like you wanted, I bet,” Daud said. “What’s in it for you?” Besides entertainment, of course—though, realistically, anything else would be too much to ask.

The god regarded him for a moment, as though debating whether he should answer the question or not. He chose to ignore it. “You’ve been quite... generous in your cooperation. I expect even Corvo anticipated a bit more resistance from you.”

Cooperation was only logical in this situation, from where Daud stood. He was sure that the Outsider knew that, but could never pass up an opportunity to psychologize his agents out loud, to make them part of the conversation despite never actually listening to them or caring about what they had to say. It was only fair that Daud stopped caring about what the Outsider had to say a long time ago, in return.

“When you saved the Empire all those years ago, you managed to also save yourself. Then you left your life fully in the Lord Protector’s hands—you could have left Dunwall when you had the chance, you could have ran, but you stayed and faced his judgment, ready to take whatever may have come. I wonder what must be going through your head now, when you’re with him.” 

Daud supposed he should be grateful for the fact that Corvo and Billie got him out of the Eyeless’ den, but he never asked them to and Corvo didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart so there was no point for empty sentiments in that field. The only thing to be even remotely grateful for was Corvo’s sparing of his life fifteen years ago, even though a decade and a half of traveling the Isles did nothing to make him feel that his life was even worth anything. 

But that desperate trepidation in Corvo’s eyes when he heard the truth about Emily and Delilah alighted that tiny spark of long-forgotten… hope, dare he say; a certain yearning for a chance to try to help fix what was broken. A shattered cup would always stay shattered, of course—even if it was glued back together, the cracks would remain, the traces of its fall always visible. A shattered cup would never be the same, but even still, if all the pieces were back in place, if it was glued together properly, one could perhaps even drink out of it again. 

He didn’t deserve any chances at redemption, he knew that full well—but he couldn’t help the fact that Corvo’s request for his aid yanked on that selfish, foolish speck of hope in his gut that maybe, just maybe—

“You’ve been drowning in your guilt for a long time, Daud. At one point you tried and failed to be the one to drown it instead and it came back in waves to surge over you, and you never did learn how to stay afloat in a raging sea.”

“It’s all the same as it was the last time we spoke,” he replied. He sounded tired, even to himself. “What does it matter to you now?”

“Everything matters to me.” Daud suppressed a scoff at that. If that was even remotely true, then the god wouldn’t be abandoning his subjects for years on end any time he got bored, then popping out of nowhere and pretending that they were still his toys to play with. But, of course, he was right in that—there was no escaping the Outsider’s clutches as far as Daud knew. 

When Corvo lost his Mark at Dunwall Tower, he wondered, did the Outsider just force a new one on him? Or did he give him a choice? As unlikely as that scenario was, could he have refused?

“Once again, you’re trying to change something,” the god continued. “To amend for the past mistakes.”

“I’m not here by my own choice.”

“Oh, but you are.” Daud scoffed to himself at that, amused as to why he thought that half-heartedly lying to the god of the Void would work now, if it never had before. “It’s an opportunity for you, of sorts—you hope that by helping Corvo you will help yourself.”

Daud rubbed his eyes, torn between boredom of listening to something he already knew or the discomfort of having his subconscious outlooks verbalized. Words spoken aloud tended to solidify the vague concepts and feelings buried deep inside and that felt exposing.

“It is just like fifteen years ago in Dunwall, when you decided to change your ways and stop killing mindlessly during the search for Delilah. But you know what’s fascinating? You seem to want or try to change only when someone else gives you the opportunity to do so.”

Daud frowned, wanting to object, but with each passing second he grew more convinced that it was the truth and he hated it.

“What will happen to you when the rightful Empress is back on her throne?” _When? Not “if”?_ “When you’re back to being on your own? Will you crawl back into your cave of grudges and murder with no one there to lead you on a different path?” 

Being preached to by the god of the Void was always irritating to no end, but involuntarily agreeing deep down inside with whatever that monotone voice said was simply maddening.

“You don’t know me,” he growled uselessly.

“I’m afraid I do. Either way, you aren't getting any younger, Daud—and age has a tendency to make people less and less capable of change.” 

He’s heard enough. Damn well enough.

“I wonder, my friend—I wonder whether you will finally manage to subvert my expectations.”

“I don’t give a flying shit about your expectations.”

The Outsider almost, _almost_ looked disappointed. 

“And what about the Lord Protector’s?”

Daud bit down on his tongue and frowned in addled surprise.

The Outsider raised his chin knowingly and, despite the wish to beat that haughtily-serene expression out of him, a chill rolled down Daud’s spine at the god’s intent stare.

“Ah, yes. _His_ expectations you care about quite a bit. _His_ disappointment you won’t be able to bear the second time; it would break you. And so you latch onto him like a lifeline and hope that he will drag you out of this hole you’ve dug for yourself a long, long time ago.”

This was getting out of hand and Daud was ready to snap at the bastard to just be done with this crap and bring him back to reality.

“You can stop right there. I’m not hoping for anything.”

“You’re deceiving no one but yourself, Daud. But that will only end up confusing you, you know that.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. “Leave. Me. Be.”

“Oh, but I’m interested to see where you’ll go from here. It’ll be a pity to let you out of sight now, especially with that defensiveness of yours.”

Daud only stared at him with whatever exhausted bitterness he had left.

“But now that you’re making your way through this city with purpose, I can only wish you luck with Breanna Ashworth. A sad creature, she is, with Delilah as the only guiding star in her life. How will Breanna meet her end?” The Outsider’s form dissolved into a whirl of shadowy particles, but his voice still came through before fading away just as the rest of him. “And how will you?” 

*

“Where were you?” Corvo sounded annoyed, to put it lightly, when Daud materialized back on the roof next to him. Instead of replying, he pulled out the two slabs of whalebone from his pockets and held them out in front of him.

He could practically see Corvo eyeing him with suspicion behind that mask before reaching out and taking the runes after a moment of consideration. They dissolved in his hands almost right away.

“...Thanks,” he said quietly. “I didn’t... hear these.”

Fair enough, since the black-eyed bastard so eagerly wanted to speak specifically to Daud.

“Me neither,” Daud lied, “just found them accidentally.”

“Huh.” 

Relieved as well as surprised at the fact that Corvo didn’t start asking questions at the unconvincing response, Daud put his hands in his pockets and glanced at the Howlers’ lair across the street. “Any problems here?”

“None,” Corvo replied easily. “Follow me.”

*

Walking in the front door of the Royal Conservatory and trying to evade a dozen of witches at a time in the courtyard was, mildly put, not the best option. Thankfully, a couple of windows of the building’s third floor were left open, sparing them from having to make any unnecessary noise.

Corvo wanted to do this as quietly as they could, he told him, so as they made their way in through the window Daud tinkered with the wristbow that Billie’d reserved for him (she really had been intent on finding him at one point or another, hadn’t she?), loading in a sleep dart in the hopes that the majority from this new generation of witches was about as slow and unassuming as from the last. 

To his pleasant surprise, he saw three perfectly whole sleep darts on the table that stood in the middle of the room. He largely ignored the fact that they were sticking out of a mutilated, carved up from what looked like a sloppy dissection job, body and plucked them up one by one.

Corvo wasn’t quite as unperturbed, swearing softly under his breath as he looked the carcass over. “What in the Void are they doing in here?”

Daud only shrugged, sweeping his gaze over the room—a “refurbished” office, of sorts—in which they turned up. The body wasn’t the only indication of witchcraft practices—there was also a working stove with a large steaming pot, bundles of feathers strewn everywhere, large filing cabinets from the Conservatory’s original purpose rising all the way to the ceiling, their wooden surface marked up with indecipherable writings. Corvo spoke softly enough for Daud to gather that he was also aware of the couple of witches that sat and talked in the next room and were yet seemingly unaware of the intruders. The offices were littered with lit candles but submerged in darkness otherwise, and Daud blew out the ones by the doorway so as to not cast any shadows into the hallway.

Good timing, that was, since the witches’ conversation suddenly became more audible.

“Poor Lucinda,” one of them said. “She wanted to raise the bloodbriars, but cannot. After trying to make gravehounds for weeks, she gave up.” Great—the beasts employed by the original coven were still in effect. As much as Daud has grown to hate them during the brief run-in with Delilah back in Dunwall, a familiar evil was much better than a brand new one. “You should have seen the twisted things she made, all snouts and teeth and tails.”

He caught the inquiring turn of Corvo’s head out of the corner of his eye and held up a hand in a more or less dismissive gesture, as though to indicate that the other man didn’t have to worry about it. For now. 

They were in no place to discuss the witches’ tactics in detail, anyway—all things considered, they probably should have done that earlier. Oh well.

“That’s just the way it is, dear Parmelia,” the second witch replied. She seemed to be older, based on her voice. “Delilah wears the Outsider’s Mark, and some of what she can do flows down to us.”

No surprise there—her arcane bond was working the same way as before, looked like.

“It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Think about working your fingers raw weaving nets or raising cows to slaughter. Any of the gifts we receive is better than living under the boot.”

“That’s true and fine, a wise way to look at things, but it won’t help Lucinda rise any higher in Delilah’s favor.”

Staying to listen till the end of the exchange was worth it because, soon after, one of the witches that was previously standing on the floor blinked away and walked farther into the offices, while the other one remained sitting on top of a tall cabinet and, not even seeing Daud as he leaned out of the doorway to assess the area, waving her legs in the air without a care in the world. The sight was so inappropriately childish that it was unnerving, especially when coupled with the dark sludge that at some point poured out of the witch’s eyes and remained, in dried streaks, on her cheeks and sides of her jaw. 

Daud only threw Corvo a glance and got a brief nod in return, after which he leaned out once again and sent a sleep dart into the witch up on the closet, while, at the same second, Corvo also popped out and blinked right behind the one that was walking away, immediately choking her out and then laying her quietly on the floor in one of the empty rooms.

The way was clear, according to Void Gaze—at least for now.

“Are… _bloodbriars_ those thrashing tendril things that they summon sometimes?” Corvo whispered, walking up to him quietly after finishing looking around and pocketing things they could use or junk to sell later.

“Yep,” Daud loaded another sleep dart into his wristbow, “but those are fairly harmless if you move slowly and don’t draw their attention.”

Corvo snorted softly. “Easy to say, move slowly during a fight.”

“Move out of range, then.”

Corvo gave a couple of quick nods, looking like he knew what Daud was talking about. Clearly, he was already familiar with the conjured plants. “And what about gravehounds these two mentioned?”

At that, Daud scoffed. “Those are fun.” They weren’t. The two of them walked back into the room they crawled into from the outside, beginning to fumble through the few drawers and shelves for whatever supplies they could find and carry without much hassle. “Just… make sure you destroy their skulls right after you kill them. Crush them, or something.” 

“Huh?” Corvo grunted. “And if I don’t?”

“Then I don’t want to hear you complaining when you find yourself having to kill the same mutt more than once. Especially when there’s several of them coming at you. Simultaneously.”

“What kind of— don’t tell me— _reanimation?!”_

Daud gestured loosely to the dissected body in the center of the room. “Don’t know why you’re even surprised anymore.” Void, aside from all the traces of experimentation there were even some bloodfly stings visible along the pale limbs, which made for one more… organism to watch out for in this place. 

Corvo let out a rasping sigh that hissed hollowly in the mask. “Hounds? How long until they start reanimating people?” He stood over the body and crossed his arms. Once again, Daud couldn’t see his expression but he could easily imagine the repulsion written on it. It was a silly thing, but he found it amusing to try to picture the faces Corvo made behind that mask of his—a game, maybe, of sorts. A stupid one, he knew, but he couldn’t help it.

“Ideally,” _hopefully,_ “they’ll never get to that stage,” he replied. “Let’s hope they aren’t as competent at all this corruption magic crap as they seem.” So far, at least, there was nothing particularly new in their craft that Daud’s seen, and he could only hope it would stay that way.

Corvo only nodded. “We should move,” he said, then hurried silently out of the room once again.

*

“…Just how many of them are there?”

Hiding behind the main hall’s display stands was easy enough, but one thing that was not was taking in the full view of the room all at once. So much open space in a closed area would have been a nightmare to operate in, however, the space below the uncomfortably high ceiling was filled with huge chandeliers and hanging taxidermies of owls and other large birds. 

The only problem was, most of _those_ were occupied by chatting and loitering witches that sat wherever they pleased. Corvo had indicated the direction to Ashworth’s office, at least, with the information conveniently gathered from the map in the Overseer outpost. Passing by unnoticed would take a bit of effort, especially since Daud had no doubt that there were more witches walking around in the hallways that ran along the perimeter.

On the far side of the hall a large, strange contraption caught the eye and, despite not being able to see it clearly from this distance, Daud could guess that it was the exact device that they were looking for. 

“That looks like Jindosh’s tinkering alright,” Corvo echoed his assumptions in a hushed tone. “Should probably check on Ashworth first, though.”

Daud nodded his agreement. 

The coven was spreading like a weed and needed to be finally rooted out—they’d start right here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D


	11. Chapter 11

Corvo inwardly thanked the Void for the fact that they got to Ashworth’s office in time for whatever conversation she was having inside it. One of the lower stories of the main hall provided with a more or less open walkway with only a few spread out, patrolling witches that weren’t too difficult to take out and then hide in the dark corners. It seemed he and Daud were in a silent agreement not to set foot in the hall’s center or any other excessively open space unless it was absolutely necessary.

A tall and narrow cabinet stood outside of Ashworth’s office, with, conveniently, just enough space under the ceiling to hold a grown crouched man, so the both of them found it a perfect eavesdropping spot to be perched on.

“Breanna, what happened to Jindosh? I’m told he’s a gibbering idiot now.”

As soon as Delilah’s voice—and it was, undoubtedly, her own live voice—resounded from behind the room’s closed, ornate glass doors, Corvo‘s brow knitted in apprehensive concentration.

She could not possibly be there, in that room, at this very moment. 

There was no way.

It took two weeks, at the very least, to travel from Dunwall to Karnaca and he sincerely doubted that the ability to walk to and fro from the Void whenever one wished gave the option of teleporting to different places in the world, as well—it was ridiculous, no one should be capable of that, so _how—_

“I don’t know, Delilah. Forgive me.”

Dark Vision revealed two female silhouettes, as well as two of the beasts Corvo had previously seen with the other witches from a distance. Neither of the women moved much; one was standing and the other—Ashworth, he assumed—was kneeling before the first.

“No, my dear, it’s a loss, but I doubt he had anything more to give us,” Delilah said.

 _How in the Void—_ Corvo whipped his head around to look at Daud, hoping that the harshness of the motion would be enough to convey his confusion without the use of facial expressions or words. To his surprise (and mild frustration, as well), Daud didn’t look nearly as perplexed as Corvo felt, his brows only furrowed slightly in visible concentration at the dialogue’s content, and not the way that it was conducted in the first place. The barest of sounds could warrant instant exposure and Corvo did not dare even open his mouth. 

He wondered, then, if Daud knew sign language.

Either way, it wasn’t like it would have been of any use, since Corvo’s knowledge was rusty at best and this was no time to experiment.

“Sokolov was taken away as well,” Ashworth continued, and Delilah’s voice followed without a second‘s hesitation. 

“Who would want that ancient fool?” she spat, sounding inconvenienced at best. “Never mind. How goes the Communion? I am hungry to whisper into the ears of the Oracular Sisters.”

Corvo perked his ears at that, forcing himself to focus on the words themselves instead of trying to guess the way they were spoken.

“My influence grows. Last night I walked through a dream with one of them, and we drank from a fountain in a town where she was born.”

So, Vice Overseer Byrne’s suspicions were right. He turned his head again and met Daud’s gaze, who, to say the least, didn’t look very pleased with what he was hearing.

Suddenly, Corvo felt stupid about the fact that they hadn’t made the connection between the Oracular Order and the Oraculum itself back at the Overseers’ outpost. It was still a bit of a stretch, perhaps, but with the device’s obvious name and new evidence that Delilah was indeed interfering with the sect, the possibility solidified.

Corvo was not very familiar with the Oracular Order. The Overseers he was plenty knowledgeable about, since they were a much greater and more pressing threat to him as Void-touched, as well as their current ties with the crown and his years of working closely with High Overseer Khulan. It was the Sisters’ oracles, prophecies, and whatever it was that they did in their circles behind closed doors, that Corvo was no expert in. 

The fact that they operated away from public eye and mostly interacted with the world only through the Abbey’s male sect, though, painted them in a suspicious and even duplicitous light, and Corvo had never approved of matters that made his job as Spymaster unnecessarily harder.

One thing that was clear, however, was that the Overseers tended to take the Sisters’ word almost as faithfully as the Strictures themselves. If one succeeded in controlling the Oracular Order, they’d succeed in controlling the Abbey and its following inside and out.

Corvo couldn’t let that happen. For all the annoyances that the Abbey brought at large, at least it was predictable, and he preferred it to remain so.

“And this business with Jindosh won’t affect things?” Delilah queried. 

“No,” Ashworth replied, “he continued to tinker with the lenses; thicker, thinner, more opaque. It was tiresome to watch. I still have the old lenses and cast off parts piled in my workshop. But Jindosh finished some time ago. The rest is up to me, learning to use the machine. A tricky thing, touching the Void through such a device.”

“Blood and biscuits. I look forward to using it myself, once you’re ready.”

“Will you visit soon?”

“Perhaps. Dunwall Tower is mostly in hand. The High Overseer won’t be a problem anymore.” Corvo chewed on his tongue, trying to gather what exactly that meant. The High Overseer escaped Dunwall Tower during the coup, he knew that much, but— “And there’s the matter of my own project. I grow more excited with each brushstroke. When I come to Karnaca we’ll drink an ocean of good wine and stay tight as a boiled owl.”

He almost shuddered with a sudden surge of anger brought on by the mere reference to Delilah’s painting. The longer this conversation dragged on, the more he itched to see how it was happening, who Ashworth was talking to— the mostly static form seeping through his Dark Vision in a burning silhouette seemed to show everything and yet reveal absolutely nothing, and he decided to take matters into his own hands. He clenched his left fist slowly, aiming his transversal onto the floorboards before the office’s doors but still a bit off to the side by the wall, and was already in the process of gradually releasing his grip to make the jump when his upper arm was suddenly clutched in a death grip and the only thing that kept him from yelping in shock at the way his whole self was instantaneously yanked back was his unconscious, well-trained will to not make a sound.

He didn’t hear what Ashworth replied to Delilah because he suddenly turned up on the windowsill of a nearby open window, with Daud still holding him by his arm and pulling him towards the outside, above the Conservatory’s courtyard, and then _up_ — With this sudden development’s urgency and the surprise that it brought, Corvo didn’t even think to object to any of it (yet) and instead followed Daud when he finally released him from his grip and blinked up into the open window on the higher floor.

They took a few moments to make sure that the area was clear before Corvo felt free to express his delayed indignation.

“What in the Void was that?” he yanked off his mask to get a breath of fresh air and hissed as quietly as he was able.

“Will you think a little before going and poking your nose where you shouldn’t?”

Corvo gave an offended scoff. “I was about to see what was going on, thank you very much—”

“You would have been spotted right away. There’s a statue of Delilah in that room that acts as her sentry; it’s strategically positioned so that the doorway is directly in its cone of vision. Think where you step, damn it.” 

What was he talking about?

“...Statue sentry?”

Daud only looked at Corvo with a tired expression for a moment before sighing and rubbing his face with his hands. 

“I’ve seen those back in Dunwall—Delilah makes sculptures of herself, and can see through their eyes and inhabit them to talk through them.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Yes—though quite effective against impatient nitwits, you have to agree.”

Corvo dismissed the gibe, largely because he didn’t hear any malice behind it. He put his mask back on, getting ready to move. “Fine. We need to find another way in, then.”

Which was exactly why Daud brought him here, evidently. The latter inclined his head in agreement and began moving further across the floor—it was a large overgrown terrace of sorts, with a couple of bloodbriars that stood curled in on themselves. A couple of glowing… things... also lay on the floor and it took a couple of seconds for Corvo to realize that those were undisturbed gravehound skulls. On the other side of the terrace was a walkway that led to a balcony that, by its placement, made it clear that it was connected to Ashworth’s office. 

Getting past the resting hounds and vegetation wasn’t any trouble. It was fortunate, Corvo thought then, that witches seemed to like the fresh air because with all the open windows around they didn’t even have to bother with opening the doors.

They ended up in a room with a large bloodied table in the center that held a neatly laid out selection of human skulls, as well as arrangements of various tools and saws and a few trays with cut open entrails.

Whether Ashworth had these people killed specifically for her experiments (or whatever it was that she did) or robbed graves, Corvo was irate all the same. 

Aside from a large board that was fully covered with writings and indiscernible sketches as well as numerous cabinets around the room’s perimeter, by the doorway there was also a stand, of sorts, with another corpse propped up on it.

Corvo spared barely a glance for the display, not even all that curious about what Ashworth was doing here—it wouldn’t matter anyway, he thought, after she‘s been dealt with.

Daud didn’t look all that pleased himself, and it seemed that neither of them were in the mood to discuss the sight. They didn’t loiter in this workshop, as Corvo supposed this room was, and soon sneaked out into the open space of the office’s second story, where almost the first floor’s entirety could be seen from higher ground. The sculpture of Delilah was in clear view then—it stood in front of an ornate room divider and there was plenty of space behind it so he thought it was likely possible to lure the gravehounds and deal with them there, out of its sight. The problem was Ashworth, who sat at her desk and Corvo reached out towards her, just to check—he didn’t think that possession worked on other Void-touched, but Breanna wasn’t Marked, was she?

 _"After Delilah's return, women from all over the Empire felt the pull of Delilah's power, coming to join them in Karnaca,”_ the Heart provided some input. Ashworth was also tethered to Delilah by an arcane bond like any other witch, it looked like, so possessing her was worth a try.

When nothing happened as he clenched his fist once (and then once more, for good measure), however, and she didn’t show any signs of disturbance, Corvo decided it was a wasted effort. She was more powerful that any other witch they’d encountered, evidently— they’d do well to try to weaken her somehow, he thought, render her ineffective.

They blinked back into the workshop, and Corvo drummed his fingers on the hilt of his sword in thought.

“The statue isn’t moving anymore,” he said in a hushed tone. “Does that mean Delilah isn’t inhabiting it at the moment, or whatever it is that she does? Can it still see, or hear and react to sound?”

“Whenever Delilah isn’t talking right through it, I don’t think the statue hears anything,” Daud replied. “But it can still see just fine.” 

Corvo nodded to himself. “Alright. And how sturdy, would you say, are the hounds’ skulls?”

“Not very. Fairly brittle, easy to break. Why?”

“Can you distract Ashworth?”

“Can tether her. Bring her up here.”

“Perfect. I’ll deal with the hounds. And, Daud—” he looked at him intently, “we won’t kill her. Not yet.”

Daud looked back for a moment and then shrugged in apparent agreement before blinking back to the staircase—Corvo followed suit and climbed up onto the railing while Daud, taking care not to end up in the gravehounds’ sights, moved down a flight of stairs and ended up only a few meters above and behind Ashworth. 

With the both of them in position, as soon as they made eye contact Corvo aimed behind the room divider with his left hand to make a thick cloud of dust coil on the floor, and then a couple dozen of conjured rats cried out in a chorus of shrill squeaks.

Everything happened in the same instant—the hounds threw themselves at the disturbing swarm, nearly toppling each other in the process. Ashworth, as Corvo saw out of the corner of his eye, barely had any time to exclaim in shock as she was viciously pulled through the air into Daud’s hold and then all color drained from the surroundings and time stopped for all but the Marked in the room. Corvo only saw a flash of blue as Daud blinked, with the witch in tow, upstairs and into the workshop shortly before time resumed again.

Corvo trusted that Daud could handle the woman and stayed a while to monitor the rats’ progress—both the hounds’ corpses lay on the ground, already half ripped apart, and he summoned a second swarm to help the first with the bones.

When the vermin eventually dispersed, a large, glistening pool of blood intermixed with a few chunks of flesh behind the statue was the only trace of the carnage.

The sculpture was turned a bit towards the office’s doors so Corvo freely transversed down to Ashworth’s desk and snatched the first loose sheet of paper that he saw there, then ran his eyes over the words with haste. 

It was a note to Ashworth from one of the coven’s members, and Corvo compiled every potentially useful bit of information into a list in his head: audiograph recordings could be found in the basement, old lenses for the Oraculum were in the workshop, an accident...

Accident?

When Corvo went back into the workshop, taking off his mask while no one but him and Daud was around and clipping it to his belt, Ashworth was already knocked out cold and laid on the floor.

Daud was standing next to her and leaning on the table—Corvo pointedly ignored the propped up body right by the entrance and approached when the other held something out to him.

“It says in these notes of hers that these scatter Void energies,” Daud said, and Corvo took the old lenses from his hands into one of his.

Twirling them around and looking them over, he hummed in affirmation. “They’re faulty. Ashworth had some kind of accident involving these,” he waved his left hand with the letter from her desk loosely in the air, “so that must be it. And, well— it looks like she’s made a grave mistake in not destroying them when she had the chance.”

Daud huffed in what sounded like pleased interest. “The Oraculum can be tampered with, then—could maybe even strip her of her magic, somehow.”

Corvo met his gaze and narrowed his eyes roguishly.

He had to admit, he didn’t at all mind the feeling of having a partner in crime.

“She won’t like that,” he said, a cattish half-smirk tugging at his lips. The “she” referred to both Ashworth _and_ Delilah, he felt. “I’d say it’s definitely worth a try.”

Daud’s expression spelled approval.

“Could still question her, of course,” he suggested afterwards and Corvo looked down at her body in consideration. “That is, if you want to educate yourself on how the device works. Though I’d say just fuck it and shut the thing down, permanently.”

“Jindosh is useless now, pretty much as good as dead. He can’t make any more machines,” Corvo reasoned aloud, “which means that knowing what this particular thing does won’t matter when it’s been dealt with.” 

Still looking down at the witch’s unconscious form on the floor, he suppressed an urge to nudge her with the toe of his boot. “Let her sleep, for now. I’m thinking she’s gonna need the rest.”

Daud only huffed at that.

*

If he was honest, Corvo didn’t mind the fact that they did end up having to put down a couple of witches on their way to the device. 

The rest of the way to the Oraculum was fairly uneventful—the chandeliers came in handy, as well as the tall book cases that framed the area of the Conservatory’s hall that was marked with strange glowing (and even steaming) blue symbols.

The blue scribbles formed a large circle on the floorboards and extended into rays that led to strange images and three vertically set metal coffins that were connected by wires to the mechanical part of the device, with human skeletons secured inside. Effigies, it looked like—the Oracular Sisters’ scarves covered the skulls’ eye sockets and thin iron plaques with the Abbey’s symbol were strapped to their ribcages. The Sisters’ maces were also secured to their leg bones.

Corvo tore his eyes away from the grim displays and dropped Ashworth right in the middle of the glowing circle, then walked over to the mechanism itself, where the other man was already studying the large contraption.

The click of Daud’s tongue tore sharply through the silence. “Some of these parts came from the music boxes,” he said. Corvo supposed that Daud was more... familiar with the Overseers’ instruments, so he wasn’t surprised at the way the assassin immediately recognized what to him largely looked like random scraps of metal being held together. He raised an eyebrow behind his mask at the unexpected usage of the instruments, then switched his attention to a note that was pinned up to a stand nearby.

Having read it quickly, he smirked to himself.

Despite learning nothing new of value, having their assumptions confirmed and sensing Ashworth’s worry that read clearly in this handwritten warning about the Oraculum’s old lenses told him that they couldn’t have been on a more right track.

It felt good.

He could care less about the machine itself, what exactly it did and how, how much time and thought was put into it and just how much damage it could have caused—all he cared about was rendering it useless by removing the one remaining person that could operate it.

Of course, it was much safer just to destroy it (Corvo saw no reason for the good old grenades not to work in shattering the delicate mechanisms), but leaving it for the Abbey to study later would be of more use. Anything that could keep something like this from happening in the future helped.

Corvo turned to face Daud when the latter called his name and removed the lenses from their slot in the Oraculum, holding them out. “Would you like to do the honors?”

Corvo was glad for his mask, for it hid the involuntary smile forming on his face.

The Abbey would have to make do without this particular component in their studies.

He took the lenses from Daud, then held them for a few seconds in his hands before hurling them onto the floor and stomping on the glass with his heel, and digging it further against the floorboards for good measure.

Oh, how satisfying the crunches sounded.

Daud raised an eyebrow approvingly at the shards of glass at Corvo’s feet, then turned back to the slot and carefully placed the faulty lenses in. Corvo had to admit to the satisfaction, even almost a childish sort of anticipation that he felt then, the long-lost nostalgic feeling of being on the verge of causing trouble and expecting it to be very entertaining.

“Take it away, Lord Protector.”

Corvo pulled the device’s switch and, with bated breath, hoped for the best.

The machine whirred and came to life, sending sparks through the cords that stretched to the effigies, and Breanna Ashworth finally awoke.

*

She kneeled on the floor, with her stare fixed somewhere in front of her so impossibly empty as if she just saw everything dear to her being torn to shreds before her very eyes.

The thought that they’ve just dealt a sizable blow to Delilah’s plans turned any smidgens of empathy for this woman that Corvo could muster into acrimonious glee.

“It’s ruined. It’s all ruined. Everything. Everything I’ve worked towards—” Ashworth lamented, only there was no emotion in her voice, not anymore—not after minutes spent in wailing in disbelief and anger and sorrow as her powers were visibly leaking out of her in the form of dark, shadowy ash. 

Corvo strolled up, slowly, leisurely, then squatted down before her. She looked so small, so weak and miserable and insignificant. Where was all her pride and confidence now?

He almost pitied her.

“It’s done,” he echoed her sentiments, his voice gruff and perhaps a bit mocking. “ _You’re_ done.”

Only then did Ashworth seem to recognize her surroundings. She looked around herself, feverishly sweeping her gaze over Corvo and then Daud standing somewhere behind him, and her brow creased when mortal fear glinted shamelessly in her eyes.

She was completely, utterly helpless.

“Yes, you’ve done it,” she said, recognition of the two men before her clear in her hoarse voice. “Please—”

She choked on her own plea as a guttural sob tore out of her throat, but Corvo paid it no mind.

“Please _what?”_

“I’m no threat now, please, let me be—”

“Alright, you’ve had your fun,” Daud’s gravelly voice resonated somewhere behind and Corvo slightly turned his head at the interruption. “We need to move—get it done and let’s go.” Yes, they still had to check the basement for any recordings that could provide with new information. 

They’d do that later. Corvo didn’t need to clarify what exactly Daud meant by “getting it done” and, he found, he didn’t at all mind the suggestion.

Killing Ashworth didn’t seem like a half-bad idea, despite all these seemingly unnecessary theatrics. 

But maybe there was a good use to them, after all.

“Oh no, we aren’t done here yet,” he said after a moment, then grabbed Ashworth by her upper arm and yanked her up to her feet as soon as he stood up. She flailed limply in his grip, looking so dejected and demeaned and _pathetic—_ “I’m thinking I’d like to have a chat with a certain someone.” 

“Hm.”

The journey back to the curator’s office was most uneventful—standing up on one of the chandeliers, he swept a glance around the Conservatory, finding only small puddles of the same glowing blue as the markings near the Oraculum at the spots where the witches had been prior to the disaster. He thought it strange that no witches had flocked to the scene with all of the crashing and thundering of the machine, and now that made sense, seeing as its power scattered not only Ashworth’s Void energies, but, it seemed, the witches’ essences as well.

It couldn’t have played out better.

“You’re sure about this?” Daud asked in a manner that displayed only an easy sort of curiosity.

“Deliliah will find out about what happened soon enough, anyway,” Corvo said and the other man shrugged, also looking around the huge hall, his posture looser than it would have been if he were still on high alert. “She may as well hear it from the ones who did it.”

That’s what he told himself, at least, to excuse the urgent desire to gloat to the proxy of Delilah’s face. 

Soon they blinked down onto the first floor of the office and Ashworth tore into a new fit of gut-wrenching sobbing when Corvo shoved her to the floor before the sculpture, which gave a sudden jerk of its torso at the arrival of the unexpected guests. The former witch was mumbling incoherencies, muttering something to herself about her empress and forgiveness and failure. As much as it brought him satisfaction, Corvo had no time for all of that.

“Talk to her.”

Ashworth’s eyes were dry but she was choking on her own words by this point. “Please— I can’t—”

“I said, _talk.”_

Daud strolled over to her desk in the meantime and began to fumble in her drawers to pocket anything small and useful, then leafed through the laid out papers, flinging them to the side carelessly and letting them drop to the floor.

“Forgive me, sweet Delilah, forgive me—” 

Corvo was getting sick of this muttering and was debating giving her a kick in the ribs when she finally called out to her “empress” in a guttural, broken voice, at which the statue’s top half came alive again.

“Breanna.” The usurper’s voice echoed with a cold worry. “Breanna, what’s happened?”

Ashworth couldn’t even bear to look at the statue, it seemed, as she clenched her eyes and dropped her head down to the floor. It didn’t take more than a second for the copper face to contort angularly and a shrill, distorted hiss to fill the room.

_”Attano.”_

Corvo sneered and tore his mask away without a second thought, wanting her to look upon his face.

“Delilah. What a pleasure. I was starting to wonder if you’d answer my call.”

“What have you done, you parasite?” she spat.

“Maybe your little pet would like to tell you yourself.” He did not resist this particular urge to jab Ashworth’s side with his boot, and reveled in how the sculpture’s glare sharpened as soon as he did. “No? That’s alright. It looks like she won’t be in the mood to speak for a long time, now.”

As if on cue, the creature next to him broke into a wail. “Delilah, forgive me, I failed you—”

“It’s done,” Corvo said, unwilling to listen to all the tear shedding. “She’s no longer a witch. Your machine is now useless.”

“You _villain._ You don’t know what you’ve done.”

“You’ve pissed all over everything, and you’ll pay for it. You take something of mine,” he replied easily but not without threaded anger, “and I take something of yours in return. And this is only the start.”

Corvo only wished he could see her real face.

The sculpture clenched its fists, making them screech as metal grated against metal. “I hate you for this, Corvo Attano,” Delilah said, then the sculpture’s torso turned slightly to the side, in the direction of Ashworth’s desk. It grimaced, a sort of a sneer distorted with rage. “And you’ve brought a friend.”

He relished the anger in her voice—she was fully aware of said _friend’s_ capabilities and if his presence alone made Delilah feel threatened, Corvo was all the more glad for it.

“Should’ve stayed in the Void,” Daud rumbled simply, leaning against the curator’s desk. “Now you’re just asking for it.”

“I didn’t think you cared about the empire anymore, Daud,” she spat.

“I like to take to the end the jobs I start.” The man folded his hands together, looking like he was having a perfectly nice chat about the weather. “And you are an unfinished job.”

“You side with him,” Delilah’s statue turned back to Corvo with a grinding sound, and he didn’t think it was possible for a (mostly) inanimate object to express so much ire, “after he murdered the love of your life in cold blood?” 

“You’re obviously the greater evil here,” Corvo replied. He would not be provoked in such a manner. “I suppose I should pity you for not having expected to be met with such opposition.”

“Vermin, both of you,” she hissed. “Vile, rotten creatures.” The statue lowered its head to Ashworth’s form then, who’s been withering on the floor but now raised her desperately hopeful eyes to it. “Oh, Breanna, I don’t believe we will speak again.”

“No,” Ashworth mouthed, barely any sound coming out of her, “no, no, no—”

“The thought of seeing you reduced to such a pale, sad thing... it’s too much too bear.”

“Delilah, please—”

 _”She discards her, but she sees no choice for herself,”_ the Heart whispered suddenly. _”She finds it difficult to imagine bringing her plans to fruition without her most loyal, loving subject at her side. She must stub out the pain of seeing her wilt.”_

So there was a shred of some emotion other than hate in Delilah after all, as twisted and distorted as it was.

Good. That meant she could be hurt further.

“You’re going to suffer, Corvo,” Delilah said after a moment.

“That goes double for you.”

The statue finally stilled and Corvo chewed on his lip, still staring at its copper face and barely even noticing Ashworth’s doleful moaning down at his feet.

“Alright,” Daud said, and Corvo looked over to him, “that’s done.” He jerked his chin at the weeping curator. “Now to deal with this mess.”

Corvo walked over and stood next to him, leaning on the desk as well and crossing his arms as he studied Ashworth’s shriveled form.

He could only imagine Delilah’s anguish if they killed her.

Daud echoed his thoughts. “Don’t tell me you’ll just leave her here.”

“Someone’s bloodthirsty,” Corvo half-joked, but Daud only snorted.

“Not in the least. Sure, she’s harmless—for the moment. Her powers are gone, but who’s to say she won’t be able to get them back?”

“Don’t leave anything to chance, huh?”

“Precisely. I didn’t kill Delilah fifteen years ago,” he waved his hand vaguely in the air, “and all of this happened. Leaving loose ends, it’s risky.”

Corvo had to agree, especially seeing just how involved in and crucial Ashworth had been to Delilah’s plans.

“Delilah won’t like this,” he said, studying the curator who has somewhat quieted down, visibly lost in her own head. Even if she could hear the discussion, which Corvo was sure of, she didn’t seem to care about her fate anymore. And why would she, if everything she held dear was just torn from her hands?

Doing the same to Delilah seemed like an obvious choice. 

That didn’t mean it was the best one, however.

“No, she won’t,” Daud agreed.

“And that’s a whole other risk on its own,” Corvo reasoned, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. “She’s vengeful. We’ve been derailing her plans but we haven’t meddled in anything she legitimately cares about yet.” And, from what Billie’s told him as well as the glimpse of Delilah’s own anger, she seemed to care about Breanna Ashworth quite a bit. 

He could hurt her, but she wouldn’t hesitate to do the same in return, an eye for an eye. 

“Delilah will be dealt with permanently, that much I know,” he continued. “And at that point, everything else will be much easier to root out.” Ashworth was dangerous, but right now she was harmless, and without Delilah she was nothing. 

She had to live, at least for the time being. “I can’t put Emily’s life at any more risk. She’ll hurt her for this.” It was easy to imagine—he’d do the same. 

Daud was quiet for a moment, drumming his fingers softly against the edge of the desk. “Fine,” he said. “Just don’t regret it later.” 

He wouldn’t, not if it meant that his daughter was safer for it. 

Corvo only nodded.

The two didn’t loiter, didn’t give Ashworth so much as a glance as they walked out of the office and headed towards the Conservatory’s basement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit I don't know if devouring swarm permanently kills gravehounds as I've never tried it and didn't find anything about it online so let's just pretend that it does, ok? Ok


	12. Chapter 12

Billie‘s brought one of her previously packed pipes and was puffing on it impatiently, all the while bouncing her leg in the skiff as she waited.

She hated this feeling of inactivity. Especially now, when she felt she could move mountains with these new powers of hers, when she felt, _knew_ she could be of great help in the mission their little crew has set up for themselves. The fact that the current plan was to deal with Breanna Ashworth herself also made her feel that she should be there in the Conservatory, in action; that she should be there to settle the inveterate debt with the cunts who tore her away from the one person in the world who was most dear to her.

Her hands and mind were itching for a fight but, after all, she didn’t regret staying behind, not really. It couldn’t have been more evident, she thought, that Daud and Corvo urgently needed time to figure themselves out, and not just in the confines of the _Dreadful Wale._ Billie was more than happy to give them that time and space. For all of their sakes.

…For the Empire’s sake.

Besides, the gangs were running rampant and someone had to look after the skiff. She let out an uncomfortable chuckle at that thought. Forcibly placing herself back in the specific role of Meagan Foster already was somewhat of an alien sensation, but it felt even stranger with the knowledge that this recent identity would forever be a part of her.

She smoked out her tobacco and finally, a few hours later, two male figures of about the same height appeared on one of the roofs in the dock square. With the streetlights’ dim illumination, the familiar dark brown and blue of their coats were unmistakable through her spyglass. 

She didn’t say a word when the pair traversed the remaining distance without being noticed by anyone else and approached the docked skiff. Instead, she just looked at both of their faces—or one of them, rather, as the Lord Protector’s was covered by that old mask of his—and waited, in expectancy, for their verdict.

She had no doubts of their competency and ultimate success, but actually hearing Daud’s confirmation of it made her release a sigh of relief all the same.

“Don’t tell me you expected anything but,” he arched an eyebrow at her in amusement and Billie’s breath almost hitched in her throat at how relaxed he seemed. 

“Well—” she cleared her throat and smirked up at him, thankful for the darkness of this secluded dock for it likely hid the mild surprise in her expression. “You certainly took your sweet time with it. I was getting bored.”

Corvo climbed into the skiff and plopped down, raking a hand through his hair briefly as soon as he tore off his mask and breathed in a chest full of moist, salty night air. 

He reclined in his seat, closing his eyes for a moment and then dragging his hands over his face in a way that conveyed exhaustion. Billie didn’t even need to be a former Whaler adept at reading body language to immediately notice the stark contrast to the antsy stiffness he exhibited on their way to the Gardens.

“Is she dead?” she switched her attention back to Ashworth, deciding to ignore the curious image and instead starting to prepare the skiff for takeoff when Daud climbed in as well.

“No,” Corvo answered, “but she’s harmless. We made the Oraculum strip her of magic.”

Billie thought better than to question the decision out loud—Daud’s presence alone allowed her to assume that assassination had been an option that, at the very least, was probably brought to the table and discussed. Considering his past as well as what happened with Delilah she didn’t expect Daud to be especially trustworthy of any neutralization methods by anything involving magic, but she resolved to trust their judgment.

And it _was_ their judgment and not Corvo’s alone, right?

Daud looked as stoic as always, so trying to gather his reaction would prove useless to anyone who didn’t know him as well as Billie did, but the way his shoulders hung just a tad looser than normal, the way his ever so focused eyes were just a bit more relaxed as he reached into his coat for a cigarette told her that he was okay with the outcome.

The fact that she could still make out Daud’s quirks with minimal effort after all these years felt relieving. 

The familiar whir of the skiff’s motor filled the strangely comfortable silence when everyone eventually quieted down after a brief spur of exchanging news. Their next destination of Stilton’s manor was set in stone—they’d just need to go in detail through the information Corvo and Daud gathered at the Conservatory, come up with a plan back on the ship when everyone was well rested. They also needed to run some errands, as her last trip to the city with Hypatia took them not to some shop but directly to Addermire to fetch some of the doctor’s essentials for her departure. With her skill and Hypatia’s brilliant knowledge of the Institute’s layout, they snuck in and out quickly and without much trouble. Now, however, a trip to a market was due as they had to stock up on supplies and ammunition. Their food reserves were running low, as well.

Now that both Anton and Daud were alive, well, and safe on her ship, she wanted little more than to just find out what exactly happened to Aramis three years ago, but she knew better than to be rash and impatient about it. She already paid a flesh price for that.

Daud smoked and Corvo looked somewhere off to the side or stared up at the sky with his head thrown back—Billie thought he even dozed off once or twice, for a few minutes at a time. 

Both of them deserved their rest, there was no question. 

*

Corvo dropped a curt goodnight over his shoulder when they docked and, just like last time, hurried belowdecks and probably went straight to his cabin. Billie noticed how Daud lazily aimed his transversal up to the bridge deck, and gave voice before he could make the jump.

“Hypatia has left, remember?”

A pause, then Daud lowered his arm. “And?”

The implication was obvious, she thought. Still, “You can take that cabin now.”

“Should I?”

 _Of course,_ she almost said, but something in his tone told her he was asking for a reason.

Daud didn’t yet tell her how he spent the last fifteen years and she didn’t yet ask, but, knowing him, she didn’t think he’d been sitting in one place this whole time. Stagnation and dormancy were corrosive; in it the privacy of one’s own mind threatened to become a sort of prison that made regrets grow like yeast in water.

Billie knew it well herself—she spent nearly a decade wandering around Serkonos, not even attempting to find a real place to settle in, even pointedly avoiding the possibility at times. She liked living on the _Wale_ —the boat allowed her to never stay in one place for too long, it kept her and her thoughts always moving. Perpetual movement equaled advantage and safety and no amount of trying to make a new life for herself would wash the visceral lessons of the Whalers out of her.

She imagined Daud was the same way—the idea of settling down, as insignificant as it really was, wasn’t at all inviting. The idea of taking a proper room on the ship meant becoming a part of the team “officially”; it meant getting close to others in a way that spelled that he wasn’t just passing by and it would be harder to get up and walk away as soon as he wished. It wasn’t a comfortable thought.

Billie had to make it become one. And that required a certain approach.

“Well if you want to keep breaking your back on that ancient cot that’s up on the bridge, be my guest. Do you think I didn’t notice all your groaning after the first night, old man? I know it wasn’t comfortable.”

Daud rolled his eyes. Billie took it as a sign of progress. “Uh-huh. And the one you’re offering me has got the softest featherbed from Morley.” 

She ignored the sarcasm. “At least that one‘s new.” Fairly new. Sort of. “So it’s not falling apart and you won’t tear a hole through it and end up on the floor one of these nights.”

“Then bring it up to the bridge. Do you even have a proper license for this boat? We’re anchored pretty suspiciously out here—what if someone comes to check up on us and you have no one on deck to see them coming from afar?”

 _Tsk._ Stubborn old goat.

“You let me worry about that, wise-ass.” Despite feeling that it wasn’t exactly appropriate with everything that’s happened, Billie put on her best commanding tone. They weren’t in the Whalers anymore—they were all on equal terms here, even though she had a hard time believing that. Still, she was under no illusion that Daud would ever follow anyone else’s will involuntarily, but the matter of his sleeping quarters was such a trivial one that she felt he’d give in with just a small push. “But I won’t be running up and down the stairs to come fetch you every time we call a meeting, so you’re gonna stay within easy reach just like everyone else. Got it?”

A soft scoff in the back of his throat, then a raised eyebrow and a lazy imitation of a salute. “Aye aye, captain.”

“Stop that.”

“Why? I see you’ve grown into the role well.”

It was now Billie’s turn to eye roll, but at least the absence of refusal from him made her hopeful of his compliance.

Of course, up until this point she was trying her best to not think about whether placing Daud and Corvo within only a couple of meters of each other was a good idea—perhaps that was another reason why Daud wasn’t all that willing to move belowdecks. But, as she saw with her own good eye a couple of hours ago, they survived a mission together without tearing each other’s throats out and even seemed fairly laid back for a time, afterwards. So maybe, just maybe, proximity would do them more good than harm.

“Just take the cabin, alright? You don’t even have anything to move.”

A curt shrug from him—an old familiar gesture in place of saying something along the lines of _fine, fine, just leave me alone._

She placed her hands on her hips and let out a sharp breath, deeming this a job well done. 

“So,” she broke the silence again, dragging out the word, “how did it go?”

“We already told you how it went. You said you wanted details later.”

Billie knew that he knew full well that wasn’t what she meant. “Daud.”

He didn’t answer, just reached into one of his coat’s pockets to pull out the cigarette pack again. 

“You smoke this whole thing in two days—you’ll be going to the city yourself to get more,” she warned.

“I’ll live.” He held a cigarette between his teeth and lit a match, the tiny fire sizzling in the quiet of night. With the match thrown overboard and the end of the thin tobacco roll glowing red, he took a long drag, staring at nothing in particular.

“It went well,” he then said simply, and anyone else wouldn’t hear the hesitance in the words. 

“And that’s… bothering you somehow.”

Daud looked at her like he wasn’t pleased with the guess but didn’t deny.

“Okay,” she pressed, “what does ‘well’ mean in your view, exactly?” Seeing as Corvo didn’t beat Daud to a pulp at the first opportunity (though he’s had many of those) and removing Ashworth from play was a success, she’d say the operation overall went better than expected.

A few more moments passed as Daud exhaled the smoke again and seemingly thought how to answer. “Not… hostile.”

*

Billie snorted at that. “I gathered—I still have one good eye.”

As soon as they ended up back in the skiff and then out on the open water, as soon as immediate threat and need to be on alert was gone, Daud had begun to feel out of place. It was then when he clearly saw how Corvo wasn’t staring at a fixed spot anymore in order to not have to look at anyone else, how his expression wasn’t formed into his characteristic mask of cold, stoic severity that said he would rip to shreds anyone who tried to speak with him. It was then when Daud realized that Corvo has been, dare he say, _at ease,_ and it was a punch in the stomach when he also realized that he himself has been exactly the same way.

Of course, all the mistrust and tension between them naturally took the back seat at the Conservatory—they were professionals, they had a job to do and they both understood that perfectly well—but it was unsettling just how easy it was to come together in a flow of competency, efficiency, and… conciliation.

It wasn’t right. Not at all.

“You never told me how Lord Attano took the news of Delilah and Emily,” Billie tried when he didn’t continue, her voice softer than before. “Does that have anything to do with this?”

Daud wasn’t surprised that she knew of what transpired after her betrayal. “It might,” he rasped in response, not liking the prospect. “It was fine, but he... had a bit of a hard time processing things, I’d say.” 

Billie was quiet for a beat. “Can’t blame him.”

“No,” he agreed. “But maybe it made him confused.” _Made the both of them confused,_ his traitor conscience corrected deprecatingly. 

“In what way?”

One thing Daud hated was trying to explain things he himself wasn’t entirely sure about or comfortable with. First instinct told him to cut the conversation right then and go to bed, but he made himself stay on the spot as this mess wouldn’t get resolved by itself and, at this point, he was tired of running.

He took another drag, then ran his tongue over the back of his teeth. Perhaps Billie would understand, somewhat. After all, she was there that day; she and all the Whalers—not just those that took part in the job directly but everyone who was old enough to be aware of what happened—felt the weight of it for a long time afterwards. It broke them apart. Daud allowed it to. 

“I must say, I’m a bit surprised you told him who you are,” he said, leaving Billie’s previous question in the back of his mind. “But I don’t suppose you had a choice, with this whole Void arm and eye affair of yours.”

Billie let loose a short sigh and placed her hands in her pockets. “I told him even before that.”

Now that was definitely a surprise. “You did?”

“Yes, which is why the Outsider visited me afterwards—at least, that’s what he told me. But the point stands—I had no choice. I had to find you, so I had to help Lord Attano in every way I possibly could. I couldn’t let this chance go to waste.” She chewed on her cheek, glancing down at the deck floor. “I know that being here isn’t easy for you. It isn’t easy for any of us— but if we can finally give that Copperspoon bitch what she deserves and repay our debt to the Empress, then we may as well go through with this whole thing.”

Ah—there it was. The response was automatic. 

“That debt can’t be repaid.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” The question snapped like a whip, an accusation, and Daud found that Billie _still_ managed to catch him off guard with her exclamations that anyone else would probably call insolent. But this wasn’t anything special; she would verbally fling something at him and he’d spit something back only in the case when she managed to drain him of patience—it was a set system.

So he tightened his jaw, creased his brow—instinctual micro-gestures he’s been employing for a long time to warn her that she was treading on thin ice. “I tell myself whatever’s the truth.”

A humorless snort. “Bullshit. You’ve always believed only what you wanted to believe. Only, that didn’t work out for you that one time fifteen years ago, did it?” Daud sucked in a breath, already having heard enough— “No, don’t interrupt me. So now you’ve made a home in that guilt of yours and can’t ever leave it, is that it? You want me to feel sorry for you, is that it? You want _Corvo_ to feel sorry for you? Hate to break it to you, really, I do, but self pity never inspired pity from others and never will, so suck it the fuck up already.”

She couldn’t have been more wrong. Daud gritted his teeth, heavily regretting not putting an end to this exchange when he had the chance. “Don’t test me, Lurk.”

“Do _not_ take that tone with me, Daud; you aren’t my boss anymore. ‘We can’t change the past, Billie, so stop wallowing in it’—oh, you love telling people that, don’t you? I guess no one told you that you have to practice what you preach— How— how can you claim to have forgiven me when you’re convinced that your— _our_ crime is irredeemable? From where I’m standing, that’s pretty fucking hypocritical.”

Her words flew like bullets, growing in speed and volume as she inadvertently raised her voice which worked to rile up Daud as well, and it was getting difficult to hold composure. “That’s different.”

“Like fuck it is. I‘d argue that what I did was equally as bad, if not worse—I got many of your men killed. You trusted me, possibly with your life, and I betrayed that trust in the worst possible way while all you did was kill the lover of some guy you didn’t even know. If they weren’t Empress and Lord Protector you wouldn’t have even batted an eye.

“And then you saved the Kaldwin girl’s life—oh yes, I heard all about that—that’s a damn big achievement. I don’t know why you can’t be proud of i—” 

_“Proud_ of it, Billie?” 

The notion disgusted him. Billie’s diatribe stopped in its tracks and she flinched, just barely, at the lowly growled interruption, during which Daud accidentally bit down hard on his cigarette and then plucked it out and flung it overboard. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You have no idea what it’s like—you didn’t make the decision to murder an empress, and you didn’t have to live with the fact that you made it for years after. So don’t stand there telling me what I should and shouldn’t be proud of.”

“You _saved the Empire_ from Delilah the first time, Daud, what the fuck aren’t you getting—”

“You think I did it for the Empire?” His voice was quieter now, but still sharp enough to cut off Billie’s words like steel and the both of them stood silent, just looking at each other. He pressed his lips together into a thin line, made a motion reminiscent of both a nod and a shake of his head, looking absently at the floorboards for a moment before catching and holding Billie’s stare again. He clearly saw the trepidation in her eye, saw how she didn’t dare look away now. “So that’s what you think. That I ‘turned soft,’ back then, as you put it, because I suddenly grew a conscience and decided to seek redemption, to correct my actions in the face of the royal family and all the Isles. Well let me tell you something, then. Yes, the Outsider gave me Delilah’s name, but it was also followed by a mortal threat, so you know why I set out on that chase? Because I wanted to live. Because I didn’t want to fucking die and have my soul be damned forever in the Void.” 

He supposed it was time they addressed that. 

“I did it for me, Billie. The same way as I’m doing this right now, also, for me, no matter what you or I try to tell ourselves. It simply can’t be any other way.”

Billie stood, her scowl a mixture of mild anger and irritation.

”That’s fine,” she said.

No. It wasn’t. She didn’t get it. What could he expect, it was useless—she never would.

He sighed and was about to respond with something when she spoke again before him, softer now, but still with a pointed edge to her words. “I don’t see why Corvo would care about why you did it.” Indeed, he told him so himself. But that didn’t matter. “I’m sure he only cares about the fact that his daughter was safe because of you, and that’s that.”

Daud sucked in another breath and rubbed his eyes. He suddenly felt exhausted. “What in the Void do you know?”

“If you’d shown up just five minutes earlier that day, if you’d sliced those cunts before they got Deirdre—” A pause, in which Daud stilled in apprehension. “Do you really think I would have given a rat’s ass about _why_ you killed those men? Like fuck I would care about your reasons if Deidre was still alive because of them. And like fuck Corvo cares about anything other than the fact that his daughter is alive. We’re all selfish, Daud, everyone is—everyone only cares about themselves and those dear to them. You aren’t the only one.

“So stop beating yourself up over the fact that you’re a horrible person, because we all are, to one degree or another.” 

Daud sighed again and rubbed his whole face, but the exhaustion couldn’t be scrubbed off and he soon gave up on the task. “That’s nice and all, but none of this should change Corvo’s attitude towards me, and mine to him.”

Another scoff from Billie, this one a bit softer but still as sharp as they came. “That’s what this is all about? You don’t like the fact that it ‘went well’ in the Conservatory, as you put it?”

Daud didn’t reply—didn’t feel any need to. Billie would always go right ahead and say whatever she damn pleased and more, anyway.

“You don’t need anyone to validate your guilt and tell you that you fucked up—the whole world already did, a long time ago. Hating people is exhausting—I thought you knew that better than anyone. So, excuse the suggestion, but maybe Lord Attano’s emotional priorities are a bit shifted right now, with his mind occupied by, oh I don’t know, trying to save the Empress again.

“So let him—let him do his thing. You do your thing as well, and then you‘ll go your separate ways and afterwards he can go back to hating you and you can go back to feeling sorry for yourself. Deal?”

That forced a chuckle out of Daud that he couldn’t contain. “Look at you, you’re a real philosopher now.”

Billie’s mask of stoicism cracked under a small involuntary smile of her own. “Don’t mock me.” 

He made a face like he didn’t know what she was talking about and then nodded a couple times in resignation a moment later. 

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re right. Just go our separate ways.” 

It took just that to make Billie look pleased with herself and Daud almost clicked his tongue at that. Now she’d let it get to her head since she decided she resolved the whole situation—he knew her well enough. “It’s that simple,” she replied.

“If you say so, captain.”

“I said, stop that.”

He couldn’t help a smirk. “Alright, alright. We done here?”

Billie scoffed and crossed her arms. “Sure, unless you aren’t done arguing.”

“No, no, I’m done.” For tonight, at least. “So if you’ll excuse me, I’d rather go to bed already.”

“Good. _The cabin.”_

“Yes, yes...”

*

Sure, the cabin was nice, and the cot was indeed (slightly, just a little) newer but for the moment it was useless. Despite the fatigue Daud knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billie: what’s wrong?  
> Daud, who hasn’t talked about his feelings, ever, in his life: ,,uh
> 
> Anyway Billie is my hero,


	13. Chapter 13

The inability to go to sleep was much more annoying than it was surprising.

Corvo managed to doze off a couple of times, but sleep—and that was very generously put—was jerky and brief and after a while the weight of his leaden eyelids combined with his body’s refusal to do anything to lighten it only worked to piss him off to end.

He hated the fact that a job well done never seemed to be enough to just let him rest for once in his life. He blamed Delilah for it. She very, very rarely left his thoughts these days—and for good reason, of course. It made sense, he supposed, that she’d keep him awake and concerned and focused; only, being focused didn’t come all that easy when his thoughts were muddled with fatigue effectively accumulated by the past week’s sleep deprivation.

What made this particular situation worse was that it was more than just Delilah on his mind, more than just thoughts of tearing down her plans keeping him awake, and at this point he gave up on denying it. 

_“The Knife is restless.”_ And even if he tried, the Heart, he found, wouldn’t exactly let him.

The rustle of its ghostly voice penetrating the silence was the last thing Corvo expected. He realized that he tensed up at the subject and forced himself to shift into a more comfortable position just to attempt to give himself some peace of mind. 

“Is he, now?” He didn’t settle on a mental response and actually mouthed the words, barely audible, just to keep himself tethered to reality.

_“As are you.”_

Corvo frowned at the ceiling. Of course he was restless—has been since the coup. Why the Heart chose to enlighten him so, he didn’t know.

“You haven’t mentioned Daud even once since we got him out.” And Corvo’s been doing a decent job of not letting himself worry about that. When the Heart didn’t utter a word about him in Albarca and the following two days, Corvo had tried not to pay that any mind—he had other concerns. But as he’d lie awake then, staring at the low ceiling just as he was now, he couldn’t help but wonder if the silence meant that Jessamine’s essence felt insulted, betrayed by the fact that Daud was brought on board. That thought had been swallowed almost immediately, however. Upping the chances of securing Emily’s safety and title was more important than being bound by honoring lingering memories—he knew Jess would have understood. “So why now?”

_“His tale of Delilah conflicts you.”_

That wasn’t much of an answer, but Corvo greatly preferred that to the countless times the Heart left him hanging in silence. 

“Of course it does.”

_“You believe him.”_

“I do.” He’s learned to trust his instincts over the years, and this time his instincts were convinced that Daud was telling the truth. 

What was the point of these questions—statements—at dead of night, anyway?

_“You trust him.”_

He was getting increasingly uncomfortable with the interrogation. “…No.” But the question tangled in his mind and he had difficulties with trying to break it free. He couldn’t possibly trust Daud, that was ridiculous—it’s only been a couple of days since their reunion, if he could call it that, and he barely even knew the man, not to mention all the lingering hurt and wariness associated with him.

But this past couple of days couldn’t possibly have been more loaded with both confusing emotions and events; it was such a small amount of time but it felt like weeks. And he simply couldn’t ignore how well their operation went in the Conservatory. How easy it had been to assume, without even thinking about it, that Daud would cooperate, give input, share insights. And when all those instinctual assumptions were validated, despite the warped nature of the notion Corvo didn’t know how he could have felt any other way.

“I have no choice but to trust him,” he corrected his answer. _At least a little._

Just for the mission’s sake. That didn’t seem all that bad.

_“You have... forgiven him?”_

Corvo’s eyes snapped open. The question felt like a slap in the face, painful and utterly unwarranted.

No number of acts of redemption, no amount of built-up trust (or whatever that was) would make him forgive. He felt insulted that it’s gotten to a point where the Heart felt the need to even suggest that.

“How can you _think_ that about me, Jess?”

A pause. _“I can feel the turmoil in you.”_

 _Then you feel wrong,_ he thought with a bitterness he didn’t know was capable of spiking so fast.

The contraption fell silent and spoke again only after a few minutes, when Corvo was already sure the conversation was over and was trying to go back to sleep, even though the chances of that happening dropped even lower.

_“Tearing down everything that Breanna Ashworth has built... you enjoyed it.”_

He kept his eyes closed and only breathed a small sigh. 

_“Does bringing others pain reward you with happiness?”_

He thought the answer was obvious and this whole conversation was incredibly unnecessary. “The only thing that makes me happy is bringing to justice those who want to hurt our daughter, Jess.”

_“And what about the Knife?”_

“He has a name.” 

_“Daud has hurt her too, once. Will he be brought to justice, as well?”_

He hurt her, and then he saved her. It was warped and confusing and Corvo still didn’t understand it. And he wasn’t trying to understand, at least not yet—with everything going on, it felt like he’d go insane as soon as he let those thoughts run rampant in his mind. 

The response was on the tip of his tongue before he could even think it. “I already spared his life. I’m not about to go back on my decisions.”

Especially now.

This man had more about him than he was letting on. He still cared about something. Corvo was under no illusion that he could have forced him to leave Albarca and deliberately tear out all the old stitches by entangling himself in the affairs of the Empire all over again. There was something that pushed Daud to go on, something that lay beneath that outward apathy and Corvo had to admit to being curious as to what it was.

Not that it mattered. Just the notion itself was enough, at least for now.

The Heart didn’t ask anymore questions and after some more minutes—closer to an hour, really—of lying around, Corvo sensed the creeping advance of thirst. The galley was only a few strides away but he pulled on a pair of pants and a shirt anyway, as the ship itself wasn’t very warm at night, and, well, he also wasn’t exactly in the privacy of his own home.

Still, he didn’t really expect anyone else to be up at this time. Certainly not Daud, the very subject of his musings—but there he was, sitting not in the usual spot but in that corner secluded behind a large crate, where stood two modest armchairs, a small table, and a lit lamp. He was reading a book. One of Sokolov’s that’s been lying somewhere nearby, Corvo guessed.

The book lowered to the man’s lap and his eyes rose to regard the visitor. Maybe a pause followed, or maybe Corvo just imagined it due to how slow this night‘s every minute dragged. 

“Corvo.”

There wasn’t any explicit surprise in his voice; the name uttered more like a statement of fact, an acknowledgement, but it made Corvo wonder if he was expected to do anything.

“A little too early to be up, no?” he said, and the momentary awkwardness volatilized. It wasn’t even dawn yet—wouldn’t be for another hour or two.

“Could ask you the same thing.” 

_Fair enough,_ Corvo shrugged and went into the kitchen, pouring himself a cup of water (ideally he’d make some tea, but firing up the stove was way too much effort at this time of night, and, a tiny voice in the back of his mind that he did his best to ignore said, he didn’t want to waste time here, now that he found Daud awake and sitting nearby). And it wasn’t like he himself was expected there—Corvo thought it’d be perfectly fine and reasonable to simply drink his water and go back to bed as he planned; however, he knew the effort would be futile as he wouldn’t be able to go to sleep.

At least, that was what he told himself.

Daud’s eyes were back on that book of his when Corvo came out of the galley, then leaned on the main table and sipped on his water. More than half of the room’s length lay between them.

“So what’s with you,” he began, not really knowing what prompted him to speak again and just deciding to go with it, “can’t sleep? Did you even go to bed?” 

Daud absentmindedly shook his head no, then turned a page.

“You know, if you’re planning on being of further use to the mission, you should at the very least be well rested,” Corvo continued, keeping his voice down as to not risk waking Billie or Anton.

A light huff. “You sleep enough for the both of us.”

“Well aren’t you a real smartass.”

“Whatever you say.”

Corvo scoffed and let his gaze linger on the other’s face, the dim light of the lamp accentuating the angles and planes that shifted subtly with occasional slight movements of his jaw—it took a couple of seconds for him to realize that Daud soon lowered and even closed the book and was looking back at him, with an expression of a sort of calmness that could be read as questioning. 

Corvo didn’t avert his eyes—he wouldn’t show any such sign of weakness—and then slowly, almost lazily, closed most of the remaining distance and sat down in the empty chair.

He may as well—he had nothing better to do.

At least, that was what he told himself.

He took another sip and stroked the rim of the cup, then set it down on the small table that still held that same deck of cards that’s been lying in disarray ever since he stepped on this boat. Now, however, the cards were stacked and placed neatly back in their box.

“No, really, when was the last time you actually slept?” He didn’t imagine Daud had a fulfilling night of rest after his release from Albarca; Corvo still remembered his own incapability to sleep properly for more than a couple of hours at a time for weeks after Coldridge, and he didn’t know the duration and the exact conditions under which the Eyeless were keeping Daud, but he could guess that it wasn’t at all pleasant.

Daud crossed his legs, looking at him like he didn’t appreciate the interrogation. “Don’t worry, I’ll do my part just fine.”

Corvo had little reason to doubt that. Not after the Conservatory. 

And not after Dunwall.

And yet. “Still recovering?” Of course he was.

Daud shrugged.

“How long?”

“Two months.”

That was long enough. Too long. Any duration of any kind of torture was too much and too long.

Corvo couldn’t imagine what constant power suppression felt like, what it could do to a man— Outwardly, of course, Daud seemed fine aside from the perpetual look of exhaustion, but he doubted that two months in captivity could take all the credit for that.

“They let you out for fights. Why didn’t you escape?”

“They had a couple of old music boxes lying around. Someone tinkered with them, and they didn’t suppress magic fully, but had enough of a weakening effect nonetheless.”

The answer sounded mechanical, like an iteration. If he really wanted, Corvo thought, Daud would have been able to break free even with those limitations to his abilities.

If he really wanted.

 _I know you have nowhere to go,_ Billie had said to Daud after they’d dealt with the witches, and the man didn’t deny it, didn’t refuse to go with them in favor of pursuing other goals— Had he really had nothing to go back to, to look forward to? Had there been nothing to even motivate him to escape?

“How… was it? The suppression?”

“Bad.”

No sugarcoating, no exaggeration, no useless crap—Corvo could respect that. He just nodded, deeming any follow-up questions or explanations unneeded. 

But the response has led him—both of them, to be more accurate—into a dead end and he was glad when Daud changed the subject after a few long moments of silence.

“You play?”

“Huh?”

Daud nodded at the deck of cards on the table. Corvo huffed. 

“I’m not much of a gambler,” he said in a half-joking manner, immediately feeling his offended conscience scraping at him and washing up fond teenage memories of drinking and ruffling tarot cards long into the night with buddies from Karnaca’s streets.

“Really?” Daud raised a sly eyebrow and reached for the pack, taking the cards out and spreading a few briefly in his hands, then stacked them back up and began to shuffle. “I’ll bet that sparing me and then getting me out of the Eyeless’ den were two of the biggest gambles of your life.”

Corvo couldn’t help a small smirk. “Fair enough.” He followed the movement of Daud’s shuffling, fast and efficient—as most things he did were, probably. Daud’s hands were bare, his gloves slung over one of the armrests of his chair, and Corvo realized that he’s never seen his bare hands until now. He didn’t know what he expected—the Mark was there, as it should be, the inky black adorning the back of his left hand and acutely standing out against the skin. It was similar in size to Corvo’s, at least proportionally—he could make out its sharp edges stretching from the first knuckle to the third, despite it being hard to see with the jerky motions and angle (and he was careful not to stare). “I didn’t agree to this yet.”

“You’ve got somewhere to be?”

Corvo shrugged and sunk a bit more into his chair with a soft sigh, lacing his fingers together on his midriff. “Haven’t played much with the four-suits.”

“So you do play.”

“Used to, at least. Show me one Karnacan lowlife who hasn’t wasted away a few good years playing Nancy.”

Daud scoffed. “Well this ain’t a tarot deck. You know Fool?”

Corvo shook his head in negation.

Daud dealt a card to Corvo, face down, then to himself, then again and again until each of them had six. “It’s a Tyvian game. Any two year old can play it.”

He didn’t come here to be patronized with kiddy games. “Don’t insult me.”

“With that fancy life of yours in Dunwall Tower, I doubt you even remember how cards work.”

“Careful,” Corvo chuckled lowly, “you should have seen me back in the day. I still have my tricks.”

“Well, they won’t help you here.” Daud put the next card in the middle, face up—eight of clubs—and covered half of it with the remaining stack, face down and crosswise. “Just strategy. And a tad of luck, of course.”

“Isn’t it always.”

“Hmph.”

Crossing his legs, Corvo picked up and looked through his hand. “So now what?”

“Whoever’s left last with cards in his hand is the loser—or the fool. Hence the name. This,” Daud tapped the flipped up eight of clubs, “is the trump suit. Clubs, in this case. You can beat any other card with those, but card hierarchy is retained within the trump suit. In this game, you attack and defend, and eventually get rid of cards. Or not.” He pulled a card out of his hand and flipped it over so Corvo could see. A six of clubs. “Whoever’s got the lowest trump goes first. The sixes are the lowest values here.” 

“Do you attack with that card, now?”

“Not necessarily.” Daud put the six back into his hand and took a second to look it over before pulling out and placing a seven of diamonds face up in the table’s center. 

“But you showed the six to me.”

“That only determines who goes first.”

“But now I know that you have that six.”

Daud scoffed. “Yes, you do. But don’t worry about it, it won’t help you.”

“Who knows…”

“…Anyway, now you have to beat this diamond seven. You can only beat cards with the ones of the same suit, but they have to be higher in value—”

“I figured.” Corvo pulled out a jack—the only diamond card he had—and dropped it on top of the seven. “Happy?”

“Not quite.” Daud laid a jack of spades next to the two cards.

“Excuse me?”

Another soft scoff. “You have to beat all the cards I throw at you for the turn to be over. The maximum number of cards I can attack you with in one turn is six—which is how many’s in your or my hand. I can give you a card of any value that’s already on the table, the suit doesn’t matter.”

 _Fine._ The only spades he had were a seven and a nine. “Can I take cards from the talon?”

“Not during the turn.”

Corvo clicked his tongue. “But I can use the trump suit cards to beat other suits, you said?” When Daud hummed an affirmation, he took a ten of clubs from his hand and placed it on top of the jack.

Daud hummed and held up a ten of spades. “Now, seeing as you’re clearly having trouble with the spades, _and_ my goal is to make you lose turns, I could give you this ten, and that would make you either use another trump or pick up all these cards into your hand, hereby passing the next attack back to me.”

“All of them?!”

“All of them. But I won’t do that since this is a practice round. Count this hand beaten.” He put the ten back into his hand and gathered the laid out cards into a stack, and dropped them face down next to the talon. “That’s the ‘beat’ pile—we can’t use those cards anymore. And now,” he took the two top cards from the talon and added them to his hand, “we pick up new ones until we both have six again. As soon as all the cards are gone from the talon, the race to be the first to get rid of the cards in his hand begins.”

Corvo took two for himself. A queen of spades (pft, he could‘ve used that earlier) and a seven of hearts. “And now I attack.”

“Yes.”

The seven of hearts it was.

“Keep in mind that you can attack with more than one card at a time, if you have others with the same value. Have any other sevens?”

Yes, actually—Corvo added his seven of spades, remembering after a moment that Daud had a spades ten and could likely beat with that.

Which was exactly what happened—ten of spades and nine of hearts.

Corvo thew his spades nine into the mix. Daud beat that with the six of clubs he showed at the start.

“Beat,” Corvo said, finding nothing else in his hand he could continue to attack with, and Daud added the six cards on the table to the discarded pile.

“Now you fill up your hand,” he said, “it goes clockwise if more than two people are playing, and the attacker takes first.”

The essence of the game was clear enough, Corvo thought as he picked up three more cards from the talon stack. “Why do you know a Tyvian game, anyway?”

Daud filled up his hand and placed a six of spades face up on the table. “Learned from the locals in Dabokva.”

“You went to Tyvia?” Corvo beat that with his spades queen. 

Daud arched an eyebrow. “A queen for a six. Well, well,” he pulled out another card and laid it down—a queen of hearts. “Good cards. Might want to take them.”

“As if.” Well—the only other hearts card he had was an eight and using his only trump _and_ ending up losing the two queens, not to mention risk getting attacked further, didn’t sound all that nice. “But you know what, fine. But don’t I have to try to beat everything?”

“No, you can pick up at any point.”

Interesting. Corvo picked up the six and the pair of queens, now holding eight cards in total.

Daud took out two more cards from the talon, then laid out a diamonds six. “But yes, I did go to Tyvia.” 

“What were you doing there?” Corvo beat the six with a nine and his opponent gave a curt sweep of his hand in the air to signify that he would’t give any more cards and the turn was done. The cards were discarded and new ones were picked up—Corvo still had seven so he stayed put with what he had.

“Why, I was getting a nice tan at the beach.” When Corvo only narrowed his eyes at the sarcasm, Daud rearranged some cards in his hand, shifted his jaw in thought, and dropped a hearts ten in the table’s center. “You can’t expect me to have been sitting in Karnaca all these past fifteen years.”

It always came back to that. Everything they did, everything they talked about—it all returned to the reiterated sequence of an empress’ murder and a regicide’s exile. As unpleasant as the topic was, however, Corvo thought the moment that stopped being the case would be when one of them was dead.

Corvo covered the ten with his queen, and Daud followed with a diamonds queen of his own. That queen was shortly beaten by a king.

“So you’ve been traveling,” Corvo said and watched a new king of hearts being placed next to the four cards. “Yeah, just keep raining hearts on me, why don’t you.”

“Not my fault I keep getting them,” Daud shrugged guiltlessly and collected the cards to throw them into the discarded pile when Corvo beat his king with a seven of clubs. “And yes, I suppose I have been. If you can even call it traveling.”

Well wasn’t that fitting—the Knife of Dunwall enjoying a nice little trip around the Isles after committing the crime of the century and being chased out of his home for it. “Oh yeah? And what else can you call it?”

“Running. Forgetting.” 

The words were said so matter-of-factly that Corvo couldn’t tell if Daud’s become truly numb to the subject or if he’s put up walls so thick even his own sentiments couldn’t breach them by this point. 

Watching him beat the next set of cards, Corvo found that, for once, his gut reaction to the fact of Daud’s guilt wasn’t instinctively caustic or disbelieving, and instead he found himself simply accepting it. And that didn’t bother him.

Daud was a human being, a man just like him—a man that’s done horrible things, yes, and probably never even stopped—and anyone was capable of feeling genuine regret, he knew that much. He held regrets and grudges just like everyone else, and despite the many years in which Corvo convinced himself out of bitterness that Daud wasn’t capable, didn’t even _deserve_ to feel any remorse for what he’s done, facts were facts.

“Did it help?” He didn’t know why he asked, he knew the answer already.

“No.”

The cards provided with some distraction from the hard truth that, despite being an obvious enough fact, settled with a heavy weight in the air.

The talon deck was depleted after a few more turns and Corvo picked up the last card, the original trump of a clubs eight.

“And here we are.” Daud broke the silence and motioned for the other to make his attack. “The last stretch.”

It took three more turns of attacks for Corvo to lose, Daud having beaten his ace with a trump, the last card he had.

Corvo scoffed lightheartedly, dropping his remaining three high value, but at this point useless cards on the table. He liked this game. Pert, simple, and momentarily distracting from all the countless problems trying to choke him.

“One more?”

The corner of Daud’s lips crept up as he gathered all the cards into a loose stack and dropped them in front of Corvo. “The fool shuffles.”

“Quit your jabs, this was a practice round.” With a grin, Corvo picked up the cards and got to work.

*

Daud didn’t know what the fuck happened, what in the Void prompted him to initiate a game of cards, but now that they’ve played several rounds it was too late to go back.

He was afraid to say it— no, didn’t even dare think it when he talked with Billie only several hours ago, but now, with Corvo Attano slumped in the chair opposite of him and letting out occasional soft snores as he snoozed, it was clear as day that was only beginning to break. 

First light streamed in through the slit in the cargo hold’s hatch and drew noncommittal patterns on the floor, and Daud allowed himself to acknowledge that he enjoyed Corvo’s company. 

Perhaps this realization should have muddled his thoughts even more, perhaps it should have kept him even more awake and on edge about the wrongness of it than he already was, but Daud was tired. 

He was too tired to wonder at how this recognition, this _acceptance_ felt so simple, so obvious, so wrong and unwarranted yet so impossibly right at the same time. He blamed his by now half-delirious state on the fact that he found the prospect of the latter somehow soothing, dismissed it as nonsense of his overworked mind and, deciding to deal with it all later, found no effort whatsoever in dropping his head to his shoulder and easing into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I like the idea of the Heart still being a bit cynical/passive aggressive towards Daud, considering some of the lines about him it said in d1
> 
> 2) [shamelessly throws a popular Russian game of durak into this shitshow] hey I do what I want
> 
> 3) oh boy oH BOY


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get in losers we’re going shopping
> 
> (Also the rating change doesn’t mean anything, just thought it’s probably a bit more appropriate)

The distant sound of footsteps dragged Corvo out of deep sleep, but still left him loosely wrapped up in it like a large, thick blanket. He blinked his eyes open with some effort and saw a vague form of Sokolov standing on the other side of the room, looking back at him. He didn’t know what he was doing there and did not care.

“Anton—” The man’s shape smudged a little when Corvo yawned and then clenched and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand to rid them of moisture. He saw no reason whatsoever to open them back up. His tongue was heavy with delirium and most of the sounds coming out of his mouth were mashed together but he still thought he sounded perfectly coherent. “Do you have a tarot deck?”

“What?…”

“We need to get a tarot deck.” They had to play Nancy at some point. He realized he really missed that game.

He thought he heard a chuckle but didn’t pay it any mind. 

“Go back to sleep, Corvo.”

That arrangement was perfectly fine by him—he sunk back into his imaginary blanket and did just that.

*

“...rything I own is falling off me.”

“I’ll get you a few smaller shirts. And something hearty to eat; you need to gain your weight back.”

“You know my appetite isn’t what it used to be.”

“I don’t care. You’re a walking sack of bones by this point.” 

“Fine, fine— if you want me to eat so much, get some lamb. If we can afford it. I’ll make that Tyvian stew you liked.” 

“Great; the boys brought back quite a bit of coin from the Gardens, so I’d say we can afford something nice for a change, yeah.”

“Perfect. Then don’t forget the wine. And shrimp.”

“I won’t have you dieting on just wine and shrimp again.”

“Meagan.” 

_Meagan_ just clicked her tongue and sighed in response and Daud finally opened his eyes, immediately squinting and blinking hard at the light in the room. 

His neck groaned. And so did his back. Sleeping in the chair wasn’t a good idea at all and he cursed himself for not having retreated to his room when he was beginning to nod off— but, at least, he wasn’t going to be the only one with sore muscles, so he didn’t feel all that bad about it.

Right. Yeah. Corvo was still sleeping in the second chair. He didn’t look very comfortable. 

Billie must have heard movement from their thankfully fairly dark corner because her head popped out of the kitchen and, to Daud’s harmless vexation, the sly smirk that grew on her face was the first thing he saw.

“There he is!” she called and Sokolov, who was sitting at the table, also turned his head from the newspaper he was reading to glance briefly at the awakened. “Rough night?”

Daud only cringed at her suddenly loud voice and yawned, then rubbed his face. His jaw felt coarse and prickly to the touch, more so than in the last couple of days, and the itch of a newly sprouting beard was letting itself known with a firm burn, making him sigh at the discomfort and the inconvenience of it all. 

“Yell louder, why don’t you,” he muttered.

Maybe Billie took that literally, or maybe she just didn’t have a care in the world about their well-being because she moved into the main room and clapped several times. Loudly. “Rise and shine, your Grace! Wakey-wakey!”

 _His Grace_ practically jumped in his chair not at all gracefully and immediately hissed with a grimace—the soreness kicked in, Daud guessed with a light sympathy. Corvo looked around himself briefly, swore under his breath and sunk back into his seat as soon as he realized where he was and instinctual alertness loosened its hold. 

“What’s the time?” he slurred, still blinking his eyes into awareness.

“What do you care? Your sleep schedule is fucked as it is,” Billie snorted, and Corvo only rubbed his eyes and let out a sleepy groan in response. She went back into the galley and sounds of clanging kitchenware followed. “It’s half past noon,” she called, “and you guys are a mess. Get up, we’ve got work to do.”

“Fuck,” Corvo dragged out lowly and Daud could share the sentiment.

“This is what happens when you don’t sleep where you’re supposed to—looking at you especially, Daud. When I said I wanted you in the near vicinity I didn’t mean the actual fucking briefing room.” 

Daud ignored the jab as well as impending thoughts of last night’s carelessness and just got up with a sigh, wondering when Billie has become so bossy. On second thought, he supposed she’s always been that way, only now had much more freedom to exert it and very clearly reveled in it. 

Lucky him.

“What’s all the rush?” he asked, rolling his neck and kneading the trapezius with a frown as he walked across the room and sat down at the table, in the seat next to Sokolov.

The latter took a sip of whatever it was in his cup. “A collective trip to the markets, it appears,” he said matter-of-factly.

Ah. Great. 

“The earlier we go the more we’ll get done,” Billie supplied over the sizzling of the oil in the pan. Daud smelled frying eggs and his stomach rumbled suddenly, as if awakening from a deep sleep of its own. “Ideally we’d have gone early in the morning, but _somebody_ decided not to sleep at night, apparently. So eat and tidy yourselves up really quick, we’ve got lots to get through— Corvo! That’s it! Get up, you‘ll sleep in the skiff.”

The response came from the other side of the room in the form of another low groan and Daud raised an eyebrow at Billie’s use of Corvo’s first name in his presence. Really, though, he didn’t think the man would mind—he didn’t know if he was even awake enough to register it.

“...Anyway, I didn’t finish. If you could also pick up some soap and some nice hair tonic, that’d be swell,” Sokolov said, at which Billie suggested he write it all down.

Only when after a few minutes she brought out two steaming plates and mugs, did Corvo deign to join the others at the table.

“Why don’t I stay with the ship—” he began and immediately got a rigorous _no_ in return, to which he just nodded in resignation and reached for his coffee. He looked like he could readily fall asleep at the table if he was permitted. 

“We’re pretty much out of food, unless you all want to eat canned eel all day long,” Billie said when she also sat down after a minute with a piece of toast and a mug of her own. “Unless either of you have any specific requests, you can leave that to me. Mostly I’d suggest a trip to the black market—Stilton’s manor is a way off and stocking up in advance on ammo or Addermires or anything else you’d need wouldn’t hurt. You brought back a good deal of cash, and while I’d much prefer saving most of it, we’re in a constant need here. But at least we now have something to spend.” She took a bite of her toast. “Of course, if you can get your hands on something without spending a coin, that’d be great. If that isn’t beneath you, obviously.” At that, she looked at Corvo and raised a jesting eyebrow, and the man responded with a light peevish shake of his head for his mouth was full.

Splitting up sounded perfectly fine, in terms of covering more ground as well as lowering suspicion—even though most of the average civilians out on the streets weren’t very involved and knowledgeable in political affairs or matters of wanted criminals, blatantly showing their faces in public was never the best option. For Daud it was fairly safe, but Corvo’s face was plastered all around the city and that mask of his, whenever fear tactics weren’t the priority, became simply suspicious and stood out in the crowd like a sore thumb.

Where did he even get that thing, Daud wondered. Sure, it was useful with all the different lens settings and built-in advanced hearing apparatus, but it looked so unnecessarily attention-grabbing that it was plain ridiculous to be wearing it in broad daylight in place of something simpler. But if Corvo’s just gotten used to it over the years and felt comfortable in it, well, that was his business and his own responsibility.

Daud finished his eggs, which were a bit over-salted but still perfectly edible—he simply appreciated the fact that Billie was kind (indulgent?) enough to make them breakfast. Knowing her, however, he wasn’t supposed to get used to this arrangement. After gulping down the rest of his coffee, he thanked her for the food, took his dishes to the kitchen and washed them for good measure, and then went into the lavatory to at least splash some water on his face to try to bring himself into a clearer state of awakeness before they had to head out.

Void, how his jaw itched. He wanted to scrape his skin off.

The Eyeless have kept him caged but well groomed, which somehow made the situation even more deranged than it already was—of course, they had to make sure that the club’s main attraction looked presentable, constantly tidying him up as if preparing a sheep for slaughter. Even though the slaughter was never his own.

The last time he’s seen Sokolov without a bushy beard framing his face was more than thirty years ago in the Academy, so he immediately deemed asking him for a razor a futile effort. Even Corvo wore something of a long stubble that was greying on the chin and sides of the jaw, only it looked like it’s been kept regularly trimmed before everything went to shit and was now springing forth and starting to gradually lose its neat shape.

Of course, lack of any shaving equipment was the most obvious (and likely, all things considered) explanation for that, but who knew—maybe he just felt like growing it out, though Daud seriously doubted that. 

It was extremely unlikely, but still, it never hurt to ask.

“You don’t... happen to have a razor, do you?” he did just that when he went back into the briefing room and found Corvo still at the table, skimming over the newspaper that Sokolov left there—the man himself went to write out his shopping list, probably. 

Corvo looked at him as though he just heard both the most amusing and absurd thing in his life. _“Of course_ I happen to have a razor, Daud, because _obviously_ my toiletry kit was the first thing I grabbed as I _fled from Dunwall Tow—”_

“Alright, alright, don’t be a dick about it.”

As if by Billie’s prediction, Corvo zonked out in the skiff and Daud marveled, not for the first time, at the man’s ability to sleep so much. He himself was still fairly hungry (which was a good sign, his appetite returning and all), but he supposed everyone was, hence they were going into the city in the first place. 

Sokolov took the chance to interrogate him about the happenings at the Royal Conservatory and Daud found himself in a favorable enough mood to not mind the lively interest the other was exhibiting. For all the feebleness and dryness of his health, Sokolov seemed to take every opportunity to soak up news, experience vicariously what he couldn’t any longer and try to sate his still present, albeit composed, curiosity. 

Billie, it looked like, had a different kind of curiosity in her and Daud dreaded the questions he could practically see glinting dangerously in her eye.

“So how did you two end up playing cards, anyway?” Damn it, there she went. “Considering that recent rant of yours, it seemed a bit counterintuitive, if I’m being honest.” 

He was starting to realize that he missed his long-lost leader of the Whalers privilege of being able to shut some people up with only a glare. This little trip was so far doing a perfectly decent job of distracting him from thinking about last night’s confusion, but Billie was apparently intent on not letting him repress it, and that was a shame.

“Couldn't sleep. Had nothing better to do,” he shrugged, and hoped that this slight understatement would be enough to satisfy her.

By the way Sokolov’s eyebrow rose as he turned the page of his Karnaca Gazette it was clear that he was ready to make a remark or two of his own but was refraining from doing so, and Billie’s short hum told him that the subject wasn’t yet closed. Daud didn’t like the notion of that.

Billie’s light shaking of Corvo’s shoulder woke him up when they shortly arrived at the Campo Seta docks, and he looked less than pleased with the interruption of his beauty sleep but pulled himself together quickly, though not without some grumbling of disapproval at the fact that he was dragged along in the first place.

It was busy hour in the market square. The day was especially hot and the dockyards were crowded so no one paid attention to the three of them as they made their way to the fisheries where Billie bargained for several pounds of shrimp and salmon, and then they moved deeper into the square where the selection expanded. It was a terrible idea to shop for food on a half empty stomach and it wouldn’t have been much of a problem if all the fish and meats on offer were raw, but the sight and smell of cooked pork sausage, fresh oysters in horseradish sauce, smoked sturgeon, and whatever else that was laid out on the stalls with steaming grills, tested Daud’s self control like nothing else.

He had to get out of there, and quickly.

“Get some sausage, will you?” he leaned closer to Billie so she could hear him over the noise. “I’ll meet you back at the skiff.”

“What kind of sausage?” she called after him as he began pushing his way through the mess of people who made the place so stuffy he could barely even feel the occasional breeze from the ocean.

“Don’t care,” he shot back. He really didn’t—Serkonos harbored dozens of types; he wanted everything at once and trying to decide would be torture and he couldn’t stay here a moment longer. Ignoring Billie’s scoff, he pressed on, inconspicuously swiping an apple from a crate in one stall on his way to an opening in the square and immediately biting into it.

When it surprised him how blissfully a simple apple could taste, he began to realize just how little he’s eaten in the past couple of days.

“Black market’s that way,” a familiar low voice said right behind him over the market noise and he gave a start, immediately irritated at the way he let himself be caught off guard.

“For fuck’s sake, Corvo.” 

Corvo cocked his head and Daud could just _see_ a lopsided grin growing on his face even despite the mask covering it. “What, lost your touch?”

“Let a man eat, will you?”

The other only snorted and turned to head in the indicated direction, in a manner that showed complete confidence in the expectation that he’d be followed. Well, fine—Daud was in no mood to prove him otherwise.

*

The black market was conveniently positioned not too far from the dockyards, only it was well hidden in a labyrinth of abandoned or infested or still occupied by tenants, apartments. Not many would be living here if they had a choice, Daud thought, but with the close proximity to the fisheries and cheap rent he supposed it was a solid arrangement for lots of the poor and the workers, albeit the poor condition of the living space.

“Ah. The masked gentleman again—welcome,” the shopkeeper greeted when Corvo went into the shop first. “I won’t readily forget the look of that mask.”

And, if anyone asked Daud, that was the whole problem with it.

For decency’s sake he gave a curt nod to to the shopkeeper who greeted him as well and immediately took note of the door behind the man, then looked with Void Sight to find the key— it was in the man’s back pocket, but he also saw that the contents of the little store left much to be desired, with only a handful of darts and some mines of a few different types on the shelves locked away behind the counter. Not that he expected much more than that—contraband and its transportation as a practice ran amok throughout the Isles but the goods themselves were scarce; sedative poison, for one, requiring fairly rare components to make and thus expensive, stun mines and spring razors difficult to craft for an average hobbyist engineer, and not many were willing. This shop’s selection was meager—no real point in robbing it. 

“Got any chokedust?” he asked without much hope as Corvo paid for a few elixirs, all the sleep darts in supply and a couple of spring razors for if worst comes to worst.

The shopkeeper frowned in confusion. Daud sighed—the last he’s seen of the things was a couple of years ago (and he had no need of them after that so he stopped looking) and with all the whale oil rationing he supposed it made sense if their production stopped.

“It’s a type of grenade. Small can, powder and unrefined whale oil.” The shopkeeper gave him a negative in response, shrugging apologetically, and Daud simply waved it off.

“Chokedust?” Corvo asked with clear aversion in his voice when they walked out and stopped behind the shop for a minute to put the gear away. “The thing Coldridge guards used to use on the prisoners as damage control?”

Ah— right. Corvo would know all about that.

“That’s the one,” Daud replied with a small sigh whilst tucking a bolt into one of his belt pouches.

“It’s been outlawed for years.”

No surprise there—Daud supposed that ever since the Royal Protector got his position back, the conditions in Coldridge likely saw drastic improvement. “That would explain the widespread lack of it, then.” 

Corvo stayed silent for a moment, and while Daud didn’t yet learn to see through metal, he could feel that he was angry to a certain degree. As it seemed, he quickly repressed it. “And you’re telling me no one else makes it?”

A shrug. “Seems all the shipments of it used to come from the prison, as strange as it sounds. To be fair, it’s always been a bit difficult to get hands on.” All useful things were.

When they finished and blinked up onto one of the nearby roofs with no windmills or guards that pretended to be working in sight, Daud lit a cigarette. It didn’t come to much satisfaction as the dry air grew even hotter in the past couple of hours and the smoke in his lungs only added more discomfort, so after a drag or two he threw it to his feet and crushed it with his boot. Karnaca’s temperatures tended to spike up and down randomly in the transition from the Month of Harvest to the Month of Nets and he wondered why the _Dreadful Wale_ had to run out of supplies specifically during a heat week. At least it wasn’t humid, like in Morley—in Serkonos, that was one thing to appreciate.

Corvo was evidently of the same opinion about the weather because he took off his mask and cursed the Outsider when that didn’t provide much relief.

Then he swore under his breath once more when, to his question about their next destination, Daud mentioned the barber shop that was, according to Billie, stationed on the far side of the dockyards. Which meant it would take another good hour just to get there—a trifle any other day but a trial of endurance in this heat.

“Go back to the skiff, then,” Daud grunted. “No one’s forcing you to come with.”

“No no, I could use a blade myself.” 

The road seemed unnecessarily long and the heat was unnecessarily tiring and the straight razors in the shop were unnecessarily overpriced, so the both of them were in immediate agreement about not wanting or planning to pay honest coin. No customers were present and so the barber had no choice but to join the consensus, snoring peacefully in one of the barber chairs in the next instant while the shop’s supply decreased by two razors, two brushes, a handful of shaving soap and a small scissor set.

Corvo left a tip for the cooperation, though—a single silver coin placed on the counter next to the cash register, at which Daud let out a chuckle.

No, this entire trip was definitely worth it, he thought, having spotted a tobacco and spirits shop across the street. The shop itself didn’t disappoint—now that was a place in which he didn’t mind lightening his pockets.

“What’s the occasion?” Corvo asked when Daud picked out a bottle of whiskey for better sleep and moved on to the cigar stands. The selection wasn’t too rich but held a few essentials—he didn’t need anything fancy, anyway, so he quickly settled on a box of standard Culleros that he was perfectly happy with and placed that and the bottle on the counter, behind which the shopkeeper lady was visibly trying hard to not give Corvo dirty looks.

It was amusing to see the different reactions his mask brought out. 

“The occasion is that I want it,” Daud replied offhandedly and asked the lady to add a couple of cigarette packs to his purchase.

Corvo only huffed somewhere behind him, but, after a couple of minutes when Daud finished paying, placed a bottle of his own choice on the counter—some brand of Morley brandy—and reached for his coin pouch.

Alright, then.

Soon, with a crate filled with goods, they were both eager to finally head back to the skiff, hoping that Billie and Sokolov were done and didn’t needed anything else.

“Don’t tell me you two only got booze,” was Billie’s greeting when her gaze fell on their crate as soon as they met in the now much less crowded, than a few hours ago, dockyards. Some merchants have packed their stalls and left for the day, others arrived for the evening shift in their place with goods that weren’t fresh food or raw meat that was in great demand in the morning and around noon.

Daud ignored her absentminded jab and narrowed his eyes to spot the skiff docked not too far away. In it was already a handful of packages next to Sokolov, and he expected the four of them to have a bit of difficulty with fitting comfortably inside. “We all done here?”

“Looks like it.” Corvo seemed to have decided so himself even before she replied, because he was already making his way to their ride. “Wait!” Billie called after him. “Lord Attano.”

When he returned she reached into the pocket of her coat and handed him a palm-sized, thin cardboard box. “Anton said you wanted these.”

“Huh?”

Leaving him to examine what Daud recognized as a deck of tarot, Billie headed towards the skiff herself.

After a moment of looking positively confused Corvo let out a small resigned sigh and pocketed the pack, and, suppressing a pang of confusion of his own, Daud couldn’t contain a snort at the situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should we gather for whiskey and cigars tonight?


	15. Chapter 15

Delilah was immortal.

Perhaps that should have been clear when she shrugged off the sword Corvo plunged into her in Dunwall Tower’s throne room, but black magic, it seemed, was one big trick and often made it difficult to tell reality from an illusion. Now, however, Breanna Ashworth’s recorded confirmation of her mistress’ immortality gave enough reason to worry. 

For the next three days, the _Dreadful Wale_ was just as quiet as the people on board.

They didn’t do much. They should have, probably—the desperately worried tugging in Corvo’s chest always thought so. Only, for the moment, that tugging was eased by the very tangible need to rest and wind down.

Sokolov put to good use the new tubes of paint Billie got for him from the city, sipping on his wine to the sound of piano and chamber music playing quietly on an audiograph. Billie was nervous. She tried not to show it, but Corvo’s spent enough time with her in close quarters to recognize her tight-lipped wandering, the way she drummed her fingers on the table about twice as much as usual. She’s told briefly of her past with Aramis Stilton, how she managed to kill a few of the Grand Guard when they shut him away on the Duke’s orders, how it was due to his disappearance that she sacrificed her arm and eye.

No one knew what happened to the mine baron. No one knew what took place in his manor three years ago, either—uncovering the truth was both tempting and terrifying, it reflected on Billie’s face and Corvo understood the feeling well himself.

Perhaps that was why they were putting off their next outing into the city, found excuses to take the time to sleep and eat and simply coexist in the same room or in their own corners on the ship, in the strangely companionable silence broken only occasionally by utterings of nothing remotely important. But that silence brought comfort, of sorts. Some kind of calm that arose in place of the stale anxious strive to simply go and do something, anything, everything.

That strive had burned hottest and brightest on the road from Dunwall to Karnaca, Corvo remembered it well. Dealing with Delilah’s associates, however, must have invoked a weariness in him, a hefty dose of mental exhaustion. He felt so mentally spent that he barely gave in to thought during these days of respite, finding solace in simple, mundane tasks around the ship that didn’t let him wonder about much of anything. Anxious urgency took the backseat in favor of a sort of calm domesticity, and although it probably shouldn’t have been the case in the present circumstances, it seemed like the _Wale’s_ inhabitants all shared a deep-seated need for it.

Delilah was immortal, and while the thought itself was plenty demoralizing, it meant she had all the time in the world to execute whatever she was planning. And _that_ meant that Corvo could take a deep breath and step back, assess everything calmly, and thus lower the chances of bringing about his downfall with his own impatience.

A decade and a half ago he’d banish such thoughts before his mind had a chance to properly form them— but he wasn’t that young anymore.

For the first time since Daud’s arrival on this ship, whenever he appeared in the field of Corvo’s vision he didn’t feel any conflictions bashing against the walls of his skull in battle. Surprising even himself, he only welcomed this peace of mind, took absentminded pleasure in it while it lasted, if only because he knew that it wouldn’t be long until he had to dive headfirst into fire all over again. The Heart was silent, beating against his chest with only—Corvo has noticed a pattern quite quickly—the slightest hitch in its gentle rhythm whenever Daud would occupy his thoughts or hold his attention. The man himself never presented any threat or malicious intent, however, never let slip anything that couldn’t be gathered from the surface and validate the Heart’s apprehension, despite their history. Corvo found himself looking through the Void twice a day as he lay on his cot, morning and night, feeling the pulses of his Dark Vision caressing the forms of everyone on the ship if they were close enough. Caressing the form of Daud when the man lay on his side in his cabin or when he smoked on the deck above, or when he talked softly with Billie in the galley over a cup of tea.

The Heart was silent, but its silence didn’t feel betrayed or insulted like before; it felt assessing, with a harmless level of suspicion. Corvo just accepted it, didn’t pay it much heed as he routinely took a couple of minutes to watch the reflection of Daud’s essence in the Void, its silhouette-like imprint stronger and brighter than that of other, regular people. Billie’s was almost as strong, but not quite—Corvo found surprising that her visible echo didn’t blind him, not even slightly, considering the shards of the Void literally woven into her flesh.

Maybe, sharing physical matter with the Void didn’t strengthen her connection to it any more than a regular Outsider’s Mark did. Or maybe the connection to the Void wasn’t the main factor in the way one reflected in it— Corvo stopped wondering about it when the different possibilities grew in number and began to litter his mind, and he took some sort of strange comfort in feeling Daud’s presence on the ship, seeing his glow through the walls.

They didn’t let themselves sit around for too long. After having roughly outlined the next steps of their plan, Billie moved the ship eastward across Karnaca Bay, anchoring it closer to the old Batista District. The day they finally headed out, Corvo awoke at a ridiculously early hour because his very bones told him that it was time. He only wished that these days of respite had dragged a little slower, felt a little longer.

“Meagan went ahead into the city,” Sokolov informed them as they ate. “She had an intriguing idea.” 

Considering what he knew of the current situation in the so-called Dust District, Corvo expected all the intriguing ideas to be displeasing to some extent. 

*

“The Overseers won’t just leave the district,” Billie supplied, leaning against a wall in a room inside a deteriorating apartment building near the Batista Overlook when Daud and Corvo caught up to her. “And the Howlers can’t. Paolo has a price on Byrne’s head, and the Vice Overseer effectively wants the same thing.”

“That much we know,” Daud said, sounding like he was receiving a field report. Billie turned her head and nodded towards the doorless balcony next to her, beyond which could be seen almost the entirety of the Theodanis Abele Plaza, with the previous Duke's statue right in its center. A huge building with a massive, tunnel-like entrance stood on the plaza's far side. 

“Stilton’s home is just beyond here,” she continued, “but getting inside will take some effort, as we’ve discussed. I’ve been doing reconnaissance, talking to people. The Overseers and the Howlers have divided up the district. Just ahead is neutral territory, but both groups have boundaries set up further on, and beyond those points, they’ll attack you on sight.”

Batista was the one part of the city Corvo had no desire to set foot it due to an impulsive, instinctive aversion to what he’s heard the district of his birth and childhood has become. Trampled by the Duke and his insatiable thirst for money, the overworked and underpaid miners and their families got by as they could—and many couldn’t. The leftovers of what was once a humble but fairly contended center of industry were picked clean by the Grand Guard, and now the Overseers and the Howlers were locked in a stalemate, fighting over the ashes as if the heaps of silver dust in the streets weren’t enough. 

Whatever he remembered of his home here has died long ago. 

“How long have they been at it?” he asked, as if it mattered. 

Billie shrugged. “A few weeks or so. Paolo crawled out of whatever hole he’s been sitting in to take control of the streets from the Guard, Byrne followed— No one’s concerned for the citizens caught in the middle, naturally. The Duke called off the Guard completely when his men began getting nicked by the Howlers’ blades or walking into the Overseers’ grenades and hounds—it’s not pretty out there, from what I can tell.”

Daud only sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he leaned against a table. Corvo already felt exhausted just by visualizing the whole situation, not to mention appropriately revolted.

“Aramis Stilton is the real goal,” Billie said.

Daud followed, “Sokolov said you’d figured something out.”

“Yes. If you take out Paolo or Byrne, the other one should grant you safe passage and help you get inside Stilton’s home.”

To get to Stilton they had to get past the gate to his manor on the far side of this square—and the doors of that gate were sealed shut by a lock of Jindosh’s making. Billie claimed that no one but the man himself could open that lock, unless they could get their hands on a combination.

A combination that could, potentially, be collected by way of assassination. Corvo almost sniggered—he supposed, in that case, he could lie back and enjoy a relaxing day in the heat while a certain couple of people he knew that were most suited for the job could do all the work.

“Is that the only option?” He didn’t hold much hope for having anything else they could do.

Billie scoffed. “You could always try your luck at that Jindosh Lock. It’s a riddle, of sorts—probably a hoax, too. I seriously doubt you’ll turn out smarter than hundreds of looters who’ve already tried to solve it.”

That didn’t sound very inspiring. “Forget it. Anything else you’ve found?”

“Yes, actually—aside from the Howlers protecting him, of course, I think Paolo’s also got some kind of black magic charm. They say he’s got to die twice before the sun sets or he can’t be killed.”

“What kind of bullshit is that?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“That’s a damnably strong charm,” Daud gave voice. “No bonecharms are this powerful, at least from what I’ve seen.”

“Well, in that case, good luck finding out what it is.”

He frowned at Billie. “You aren’t coming?”

“I don’t do well with dust. Besides, you two know Batista much better than I ever could, I’m sure.” Whatever was left of the old Batista, anyway. “Wouldn’t want to slow you down. I’ll come along to Stilton’s, don’t worry; but I don’t know how long this is gonna take and someone’s gotta keep an eye on Anton.”

Corvo nodded. The smaller the group, the less attention they would draw. “Why do you think either Byrne or Paolo will know how to get into Stilton’s, anyway? How do we know this isn’t a waste of time?”

“Word is,” the corner of Billie’s mouth crept up into an enigmatic half-smirk, “the Duke’s had a couple of Howlers assigned to bring food and supplies inside the manor. Be it for Aramis himself or the Guard still lodged in there, I don’t know. But the only one who knows the combination, possibly aside from Paolo, is one of his men named Durante. Thing is, the Overseers got him a few days ago.” 

“And knowing their methods,” Daud filled in, “by this point, they already have the combination.”

“My thoughts exactly. From here on out, I suppose it’s just a matter of choice.” She turned to Corvo and her smirk grew. “So. Who would you rather control the streets, Lord Protector?”

Corvo was suddenly extremely glad that he took the time to rest on the ship. This day was bound to get terribly long.

*

Every city had its faults. Everyone knew the pretty places, the parts where the tourists went, where industry and entertainment bustled at full force. It took but a few steps away from the exhibitive areas of harmony and ambition to see all the rot accumulated beneath.

Batista was one big clump of such rot that held this city together, just barely. Here, in the heart of the silver mining industry, the workers died by the dozens a month, while half the district’s population was probably suffering from silver lung, ever since the Duke handed the mines over to the Bayles Trading Company that ran them double the normal rate. With Stilton gone without a trace, Abele was met with no opposition.

As if the inhabitants haven’t suffered enough, due to the conflict in the streets the Duke sealed off the district from the rest of the city with walls of light.

The fact that Corvo heard about all of this only now was infuriating. The number of reasons to depose the Duke, it seemed, grew every day. 

“What a ruin.” 

Corvo wasn’t sure if Daud meant the half-collapsed, bloodfly-infested apartment building they were making their way through, the district, or this whole Void-damned situation. Probably all of those at once.

One thing was sure—it was clear why they called it the Dust District. Sandstorms brought on by the nearby Sirhrocco currents, it seemed, knew no rest.

They moved mostly in silence, exchanging only brief words of direction in the breaks between the storms—Corvo was never as thankful for his mask as he was now and Daud, at least, had a scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face. Corvo supposed it was better than nothing. Even still, they had to turn with the wind, clench their eyes shut, and breathe into the crook of their elbows—or, better yet, not breathe at all, if they were lucky enough to catch a storm that lasted less than a minute—to not risk sand seeping through the pores in the fabric and into their lungs. 

The streets themselves were a straight up war zone. The lack of raging fighting in one or the other group’s clearly marked territories didn’t help the citizens much, as they were still harassed at every corner. Further ahead, as more and more bodies could be seen in the streets where violence grew and the common folk couldn’t even step out of their homes for fear of getting caught in the crossfire, Corvo’s desire to break off this mess grew with a burning passion. 

If that meant putting down one of the leaders, so be it.

The decision wasn’t pleasant but still came to him fairly easily.

“Byrne.”

Crone’s Hand Saloon was the closer one of the two outposts, and they paused to think in one of the empty floors above it. Daud turned his head to questioningly raise an eyebrow. “Hm? Kill him?”

“No. The opposite.”

Daud coughed. “That’s… unexpected.”

Corvo wouldn’t say so. “Byrne is someone I can keep in my sights down the road, possibly even control, somehow. If the High Overseer’s still alive, and hopefully he is, it shouldn’t be much of a problem.”

“You want to put this district under complete Overseer occupation? Really?”

“You’re saying that as if the miners will be much better off with the Howlers patrolling the streets. They’re a gang. All they’ll do is look for pockets and homes to rob. The streets won’t be any safer, the Howlers will just keep everyone in their homes after dark.”

“The Overseers will do that just fine with their curfews.”

“It’ll be temporary.” Looking very unconvinced, Daud tilted his head to the side at that. “Look. I don’t like it any more than you do, trust me. But Byrne isn’t the worst of them, from what I’ve seen. Removing him from play will just mean risking getting someone worse in his place—at the very least, he’s a familiar ill. Besides, he opposes Abele. He was right about Ashworth and the Oracular Order; he knows Delilah is a usurper and has been taking a stand against her, even if entirely too carefully. Now, tell me, who in the Void is Paolo and what does he want?”

“Don’t know and don’t care. But I can tell you without a doubt that Byrne will be more ambitious and power hungry than any street gang out there could ever be, Howlers included. Look at them. Those zealots are just waiting for someone to clear the road.”

Corvo couldn’t disagree with that. Without the Duke’s attention on the Dust District, no matter how he looked at it, getting rid of the Howlers felt like giving the Overseers free rein to spread like mycelium over the rest of the city, beyond the few enclaves here and there.

“That may be so,” he pressed, staring at the floorboards blankly, “but the miners and their families living here have had enough of fighting, I’m sure— What will the Howlers do when they take control of the streets? As far as I’m concerned, they’ll just look for other gangs to fight. Gangs live on conflict, they thrive in it. They’ll turn this place into complete chaos without anyone to tell them otherwise, and I don’t see the Duke planning to move the Guard back in anytime soon, do you?”

Daud shook his head slowly. “You want to give these miners some semblance of order—fine. But I really don’t see how entrusting that to zealots who’ll accuse them all of heresy within a couple of weeks is a good idea.”

“It’s not.” Frustration kicked in, be it from the disagreement, or the weight of the decision, or both. “But neither is leaving this place in complete anarchy. There’s no middle ground here—trust me, I wish there was.”

“Here’s an idea: forget this whole situation and just get what we came here for. Both Byrne and Paolo have the combination—if not all of it, I’m sure it can be pieced together. Search their bases, get the key, leave them to sort out their shit. Don’t make things worse than they already are.” 

Corvo frowned, suddenly taken aback with the very suggestion of doing nothing.

“On the other hand,” Daud continued, “eliminate them both and let the fighting dissolve on its own. That way, it’ll happen quicker.”

“And much, much messier.” Corvo sighed and rubbed his eyes, as if that could ever solve anything. “No… No.”

He’s been sitting on his hands for far too long.

“I’m done standing by while everything falls to shit, Daud. I’ve idled for long enough. Focused my efforts on Dunwall as if that was the whole world, ignorant to pretty much everything else going on. Letting Emily day-dream through council meetings, teaching her fencing and back-alley fighting, self-defense from soldiers, spies, assassins, all the stupid, naive—” He clenched his teeth and forced the air out through his nose, looking out the window where the wind whipped the shutters in and out of the room, revealing the ruin beyond. “The good that it did. The crown’s been turning a blind eye to the state of affairs here—you could say that half of all that’s happening is, not in small part, my fault. It’s about damn time I did something about it, and fixing it all won’t be painless. It can’t be.

“We can’t help the miners living here, not right away. Both the Overseers and the Howlers will abuse them in their own ways, and I won’t sacrifice this district just so it could keep the gang contained and sealed off from the rest of the city. Byrne’s presence may bring the Guard back in, at least for the time being. The Overseers at large will be dealt with later.”

Daud walked over to a window on the opposite side of the room that overlooked the Crone’s Hand Saloon. “Fine,” he said after a moment, curt and gruff. “Then let’s get this over with.”

Corvo nodded, mostly to himself. It was a horrible feeling, having the power to change something while having his hands tied at the same time. Perhaps it would have been easier now if he hadn’t been pretending for a decade and a half that Emily, and consequently, Dunwall’s state was all that mattered. Now, countless people that were left to the Duke’s tyranny were paying for it.

“Why does any of this have to be up to me?” he sighed, and only when Daud huffed somewhere behind him did Corvo realize that he muttered the words out loud. When he turned his head, the man had already blinked out of the window. 

*

“Crone’s Hand”, Vera Moray’s portrait in his office, swarm of rats his body dissolved into as he cheated death—they should have known Paolo has somehow gotten ahold of Granny Rags’ hand.

“I thought I was done with that hag years ago,” Corvo grated out after he crushed the brittle bones of the reanimated husk of a hand under his boot.

Daud raised an eyebrow at the disgust in his voice. “You and her had history?” He didn’t doubt that Corvo’d come across her “presents”, but, clearly, there was something else.

Corvo squatted down to wipe the flat of his blade on Paolo’s vest—he took the second kill. “We did. I killed her.”

Huh. “What’d she ever do to you?”

“Well, I needed to get out of the sewers in Rudshore, and there she was, with the key. …About to make Slackjaw into a stew.”

It seemed Corvo would never cease to surprise him. “Ah, I get it now. You’re just bloodthirsty for other Void-touched.” He ignored the unamused tilt of Corvo’s head in his direction. “And you helped a gang boss! Who would’ve thought.” 

Corvo finished with his sword and folded it back into its hilt, then stood up, looking Paolo’s body over. “Times were different.” 

“Whatever you say.” Paolo had nice clothes; Daud wondered who he’d stolen them from. “But anyway, have fun with Byrne. Try not to get branded a heretic while you’re there.” Or worse. But, from what he’s seen, Corvo was careful enough. When it counted, at least.

“Huh— What, you‘re not coming to their base?”

“Of course not. What made you think that I’d even set foot there?” Unless, of course, the objective lay in violence, but that was implied.

Corvo only scoffed in mild disbelief and waved him off. “Have it your way. Where will you go?”

“I’ll take a look around. Come to the square a couple blocks behind the Saloon, when you’re done—I’ll meet you there, somewhere.”

Vague rendezvous point. But they’d be fine. 

Hoisting the body over his shoulder, Corvo only grunted in assent and blinked out of the window to the other side of the street. Daud watched him go, not really having any doubts that he’ll see him alive and well soon enough, but still wondering.

*

The apartments in the areas where the fighting took place were mostly abandoned and deteriorated, and these territories weren’t yet claimed by either group, which meant there was a chance that these buildings weren’t yet picked clean. 

Daud made his way through the rubble of crumbing cement and broken furniture, taking occasional peeks with Void Sight just to make sure there wasn’t anyone around. He transversed to higher floors of the building, where the widows were shattered, some of the furniture knocked over and strewn about in something of a scene of the previous inhabitants’ hasty escape. Only the dull sounds of shouts, exploding grenades, and howling bolts in the distance kept this dust-blanketed space from giving off a ghostly eerie impression.

He wasn’t sure what he noticed first—the feeble sounds of whimpering or a single, small yellow silhouette amidst the greyscale of his Void Sight. 

The little shape was somewhere above, and it took only a few moments for him to close the distance and walk into a room of a typical, for this place, appearance, where a boy of no more than three or four years was huddling on the floor in the corner. Naturally, the boy was crying.

The child flinched away as if trying to blend in with the dirty grey of the wall he was pressed against as soon as Daud walked in, so he immediately raised his hands, palms out. 

“Hey,” he said, as softly as he could with how parched his throat was from all the sand, and carefully, so as to not spook the kid more than he already was, pulled the scarf off his face. “It’s alright.”

The boy only stared at him, wet eyes wide with fear, and trembled, hugging his bony knees closer to his chest. His copper hair was matted, his face was streaked with soot. He looked so small and so thin, probably thirsty and hungry and no doubt traumatized by all the sounds of violence in the street.

No one in their right mind would leave a child alone in this place; not for a prolonged amount of time, anyway. And there was no one else around.

A quick sweep of his eyes around the room didn’t bring Daud to any definitive conclusion about it—the place was a wreck, as simple as that; traces of the previous inhabitants’ living were nearly nonexistent. 

“I promise I won’t hurt you,” he said, overly conscious of the gruff in his voice but trying to pay it no mind. He stayed where he was and lowered to the floor, slowly, squatting roughly at the boy’s eye level. “Are you alone here? Where’s your mother?”

At the mention of a parent the boy’s eyes filled up with tears all over again and he let out a weak sob. “I don’t know.”

It took Daud a second to understand what was being said through the garbled sounds and he stifled a sigh when he did. “Alright. When did you see her last?”

Through all the sobbing that eventually turned into hiccuping Daud made out that the boy’s mother left him here yesterday morning. Went out to scavenge for supplies, probably, and didn’t come back for more than a full day. Based on the child’s reaction, that wasn’t a normal occurrence.

Feeling the boy’s gaze fixed on him, Daud sighed and slowly stood up to move back to the doorway and sit down on the floor, leaning against the wall. He’d wait, just for a bit. See if anyone came for the little guy, despite everything in his conscience telling him that no one was coming and that mother of his was probably dead somewhere in the gutter by now, or maybe she, worse yet, has left her kid to starve due to lack of food to feed them both and fled.

It was no surprise that after a couple of hours nothing changed. 

So be it. He wasn’t planning on staying here any longer.

“I’m Daud,” he said, keeping his voice down and looking straight at the boy’s by now dry eyes. He tired of crying some time ago. “What’s your name?”

The boy sniffed and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, smearing the small patch of dirt on his skin. “Migel.”

“Alright, Migel. I think your mother’s having some trouble, and I can’t leave you to starve here. How about we go look for her, hm?”

Giving him false hope was the last thing Daud wanted to be doing but he had to get the kid out of here. At the very least, get him away from the fighting, drop him off somewhere where good people could help.

Migel nodded—a very small and hesitant motion—and then flinched away into his corner when one of the Overseers’ hounds began barking somewhere below. 

“No one will hurt you,” Daud hurried to promise. “You’ll be safe with me.”

Migel chewed on his trembling lip and his wide glassy eyes reflected a multitude of questions he clearly yearned to ask, but evidently couldn’t find the voice. Maybe that was for the best—kids shouldn’t be talking to strangers, after all. Especially in this environment. 

Well, Daud thought, they shouldn’t be agreeing to leave with strangers, either, but he would count this situation an exception. He could only be glad that it was him who found the boy, and not anyone else with potentially malicious intent.

“Alright,” he said, “I’ll show you something cool. Watch this.” He gently clenched his left fist and transversed, straight from his sitting position, a short distance and ended up on his feet in the room’s center.

The boy gasped and his eyes widened even more, if it was possible, as he clenched his little fists around his knees. “How— what’d you do?!” 

If there weren’t any Overseers around, Daud might have considered showing Migel the Mark, distract him even further from his lost mother and pull him into this momentary magical fantasy. The kid would remember this day for a long time, unfortunately, and letting him see a transversal with his own eyes was putting him at a big enough risk. But if they were to get out of this place, he had to get familiar with this method of transportation—Daud could only hope he wouldn’t go blabbering to everyone about it afterwards and, that way, run straight into the waiting Overseers’ nets.

“It’s magic. Very few people can do it. But you must keep it a secret, alright?”

Migel nodded with as much excitement as he could muster in his current state. Daud wasn’t sure he understood. “Do it again! Please?”

Daud scoffed softly at the request and blinked once more, now ending up near the boy who grew more enthusiastic by the second. “Want to try?”

Of course he did. Migel kept nodding and even smiled fully, his teeth showing, and jumped up onto his feet when Daud squatted down next to him. “Climb on my back. And hold on tight, this is gonna feel weird.”

Void, the kid was light as a feather. When Daud performed another short transversal across the room just to let the boy get a feel for it, Migel gasped, clutched to him with what seemed like all the strength he had, and, after a moment when he determined that he was alright and everything was in place, breathed out a short laugh.

“All good?” Daud asked and adjusted his grip on Migel’s legs when the latter waved them in the air slightly and blurted out an excited affirmative. “Good. Hold on.”

With the boy on his back, Daud made his way through the rubble to one of the nearest windows, blinked up to a nearby roof and headed in the direction of the Crone’s Hand Saloon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, I really like Byrne

Corvo didn’t want to spend a minute longer than necessary in the Abbey’s outpost. The man at its head, however, clearly liked to talk.

“Do you have any idea the good you’ve done?” The Vice Overseer spread his arms as though Corvo and him were old friends. 

Corvo dropped Paolo’s body in the room’s center, and saw out of the corner of his eye how the blood oozed out of his slit throat and soaked into the carpet. Byrne didn’t pay the mess any mind, just watched the scene with an expression of thoughtful approval and raised his eyes back to the visitor. If the mask bothered him, he didn’t say so.

“A dozen of my Overseers have died trying to bring Paolo down. And now, here you are—one single man who’s succeeded where my men have failed.” He narrowed his eyes, just barely but enough for Corvo to catch in his gaze the suspicion that evaporated almost as fast as it appeared. “I’m sure you have your reasons… assassin.”

Corvo only inclined his head in affirmation.

“But, tell me— I believe Paolo was in possession of some… unclean artifact. Did you happen to figure out what it was, possibly even come across it?”

“I did.”

Byrne raised an eyebrow, obviously having expected an elaboration. “Do you have it with you?”

“No. It’s destroyed.”

“So it is. A shame, really— Your ideals are admirable, mister, but I would advise you to hand such artifacts to the Abbey for inspection, in the future. Especially in places such as this, where we already have or are working on securing our establishments. Everything is needed for research, and besides, it‘s very dangerous to attempt to handle such artifacts on your own.” He walked over to the large desk standing in the middle of the room and quickly jotted something down. “And were you able to identify it?”

“No.” As much as Corvo wanted to negate his way through this conversation, he didn’t need to bring his level of suspicion higher than it already was. He had to be cautious here. He shrugged. “Just some charm.”

“I see.” It seemed like the Vice Overseer was refraining from saying anything more. 

_”There was a boy, turned in by his mother for his Restless Hands,”_ the Heart supplied for him. _“He extracted a confession as he would from anyone else. It would have jeopardized his ascent to Vice Overseer to do otherwise.”_

Corvo’s brow tensed and Byrne continued shortly, “Still, I thank you for your input. But let’s not focus on that. You’ve done a great deed today. With Paolo out of the way, I’ve got big plans for Karnaca.”

Those words, it seemed, made Corvo throw all sense of caution out the window. He tightened his jaw. “I’ve heard about you and your ambitions, Vice Overseer Byrne. But for me, this was a means to an end. Does the Abbey remember its friends?”

Byrne walked over to Paolo’s body and went down on one knee next to it, lifting up the head in his gloved hands and turning it this way and that in examination. Then, he stood back up and fixed Corvo with his surprisingly calculating gaze. “Yes, we do, and our enemies. But what is it you want?”

Straight to the point. Good. “I need to get into Aramis Stilton’s home.”

“Now that’s a curious thing to want. There’s something very wrong with Stilton’s house. It’s actually a great concern to me.”

So the Vice Overseer was still following the scent of witchcraft. Perhaps, that could be made use of. “I need to know what happened there. Help me and you’ll benefit again.”

Byrne turned around to look out from the large open balcony, through which pale light streamed into the office. “Thanks to the Duke we’ve lost our proper place here in Karnaca, and we’ve been fighting just to hold the streets against the heretic Paolo. But you—” he threw Corvo a glance and walked over to a large bulletin board behind his desk, where a large wanted poster of Paolo was pinned flush in the middle and surrounded by several newspaper clippings and ads. “You stopped his black heart for me and for that I’ll give you what you want.“

“I’m listening.”

“Interrogating one of the Howlers, we learned that some of them knew how to open up the Jindosh Lock and enter Aramis Stilton’s home. Probably just Paolo and a trusted few. What you’re looking for is probably connected to why the Duke had Kirin Jindosh seal up the manor.” 

“All right, then,” Corvo gruffed when Byrne came back to his desk and began to write down what he assumed to be the combination to the Jindosh Lock. “This might be the most worthwhile visit I’ve ever paid to the Abbey. I’ll remember your help, Vice Overseer Byrne.”

He took the folded slip of paper that the latter handed to him and pocketed it. “As will I, assassin.” Byrne turned his head and raised his voice to address a couple of Overseers standing outside his office doors, “Take our friend here away.”

Corvo watched Paolo’s body being carried out of the room, but didn’t hurry to leave. He hooked his thumbs on his belt, drummed his fingers lightly on his hips as he swept his eyes around the maps that hung around the office’s walls. “You mentioned… big plans,” he said, not feeling much doubt that the Vice Overseer was about to confirm his assumptions.

The latter didn’t break from leafing through his papers on the desk. “A masked assassin surprises me by bringing Paolo’s body to me, claims to have done it for his own reasons and then shows interest in worldly affairs? Curious.”

“I have my own reasons for that, as well.”

“Hm.” Byrne tore his eyes away from his desk and leaned against it, folding his arms loosely on his broad chest. “Why, stay a while, then. Have a drink.”

“A Vice Overseer drinks with his visitors on the job? Disappointing.”

“Oh, no, I don’t partake. But I must offer out of hospitality, no?” When Corvo stayed where he was and replied to the offer with a shake of his head, Byrne hummed, then regarded him for a moment longer with a sharpened gaze. “I am so close to something grand here in Karnaca. Call it an experiment. With only a few moves, I could be inside the Duke’s Palace, running all of Serkonos. Imagine that. One of the Isles, in full alignment with the Seven Strictures.”

By the Void, Corvo didn’t want to hear anything more.

_”His faith is strong, perhaps overly so. He sees the influence of the Outsider everywhere. In the Duke, in the street gangs, and even the miners.”_

“It’s not something you could know,” Corvo began slowly, unsettled by the Heart’s commentary, “but in my time I’ve been in the company of many members of your order, including two High Overseers. Some were good men, some were not. So forgive me if I hesitate to fully embrace that thought.”

“Careful what you say. The Abbey has a long memory.” Byrne’s hardened tone was that of fair warning, a piece of advice, rather than threat. “I assure you, if I get influence over this country, I will find a way to serve the Empire and the Abbey. Which is more than you can say for Duke Luca Abele.”

“You’re antagonizing the Duke quite a bit. What’s the story there?”

Byrne’s lips twisted into a grimace. “He exiled me from the Grand Palace and has done everything possible to push the Abbey of the Everyman out of Serkonos. The look on his face when he dismissed me from court.” 

“Sounds to me like you just want your position back.”

The man didn’t shy away from the accusation. “Of course I want my position back. The Abbey is crucial in upholding any sort of order, and on his own the Duke will spiral into debauchery and decadence even more than he already has, and drag the whole of Serkonos down with him. This land mustn’t be exposed to anymore influence of the Outsider, and there isn’t a surer sign of deep-seated corruption than the Duke’s abdication of the Strictures.”

Corvo wasn’t sure what was worse, an Overseer with a hunger for power or one with a genuine wish to spread the Strictures to all corners of the world. He didn’t sense any duplicity in Byrne, at least not at the moment—and with the Heart’s confirmation of his faith and ambition, he supposed it made sense that he was the youngest man to reach the title of Vice in decades. 

“You helped me, and I promised that you will benefit from it,” Corvo said. “However, you can rest assured, Vice Overseer, that we will meet again. Therefore, just remember that it could have been you bloodying Paolo’s carpets at this very moment, and not the other way around. That’s all.”

Byrne narrowed his eyes, tightened his lips. “Likewise—you’ve done me a great service today. For a masked assassin, you’ve made a good impression. It’s in both of our best interests for you to not ruin that impression before even having walked out of my office.”

Corvo held his stare for a moment before starting towards the exit, then paused when he passed by the man. “Be careful to not step over the line, Vice Overseer Byrne.” 

“In weeding out heresy, my friend, there are no such things as lines. Go in peace, for now.”

Gritting his teeth and wishing for nothing more than to leave this place, Corvo walked out of the office at a brisk pace.

*

Catching looks from their own metal masks, he made his way through the Overseers’ territories and thought about the fact that he’d never know if he made the right decision. The thought was both infuriating and relieving at the same time; all he wanted was to get out of the district, move on and forget for the time being, deal with the consequences later.

He didn't know where specifically Daud wanted to meet, so he stopped on the roof of one of the higher buildings in the vaguely appointed place, sat on the tiling and leaned against the chimney. Only the Howlers and the occasional civilians wandered down below; Corvo supposed he’d easily see Daud when he’d decide to show up. Or maybe Daud would see him, whichever came first.

Staring at the muted yellows and greys of the street made his eyes so dry they burned, and after what seemed like hours but was, rationally, only a few minutes, Corvo climbed into the window of one of the top floor’s apartments and turned up in the living room. Someone lived here, clearly, though no one was home. He didn’t want to intrude without reason, but he told himself that was better than making his eyeballs bruise.

He waited. Took occasional glances through the Void to check for the apartment’s inhabitants or that bright flash of energy that he, in spite of himself, has gotten used to over the past three days on the ship. 

The small wind-up clock on the coffee table showed more than an hour since his arrival, and when that familiar flash of energy finally came into view Corvo felt a tug of irritated sort of relief. Only—he frowned at the observation—Daud wasn’t alone.

With a gust of air, the man materialized next to him as soon as Corvo climbed back onto the roof to meet him. Any accusatory exclamations along the lines of _where in the Void were you?_ died in his throat, however, and were replaced with questions about an entirely new subject matter.

Corvo stared at the little boy clinging to Daud’s back. The little boy stared back. 

“What in the Void is this?”

The child didn’t take his wide eyes away from Corvo’s mask, but tightened his grip on the leather of Daud’s coat and flinched away, as though to hide behind his shoulders. Considering how small he was, he probably could. 

Daud only turned his head slightly at the boy’s movement and adjusted his hold on his legs. “That’s Migel.”

_“Who—?”_

Daud swept a glance around, probably with Void Gaze, and chose an angle from which he blinked into the window Corvo climbed out of. Corvo scoffed indignantly and followed suit.

“Are you going to explain yourself?” he hissed. “What the fuck is going on? Where’d he come from?”

Daud ignored him for the moment as he quickly looked around and then turned his head again to try to get a look at the boy. “I’m gonna put you down now,” he told him and lowered a little. “Jump off.”

The boy did just that, though tentatively, and stayed right where he was behind Daud. Void, he was practically clinging to his leg. The sight was strange, to say the least.

Daud placed his hands on his hips, flitted his eyes between Corvo and the kid, and clicked his tongue. “Take your mask off, for fuck’s sake—you’re scaring him.”

This was bloody ridiculous. Still, Corvo did as he was told, though that didn’t make the boy stop staring at him. With a sigh, Corvo looked his small form over and was ready to open his mouth to shower Daud with a multitude of questions, when the latter beat him to the punch. “He lost his mom.”

A snort. “How, did you steal him from her?”

“Get a grip, will you? She left him more than a full day ago and hasn’t returned. He’s all alone.”

Oh, Void. “Well, I’m very sorry to hear that. Why did you bring him here?”

Daud made a face like the answer was obvious and Corvo was incredibly stupid. “To find his mother.”

Oh, _Void._ “Are you ou—” he threw the boy a glance and a curt _stay here_ before gripping Daud by the forearm and pulling him deeper into the room. “Are you out of your mind?” he hissed in a considerably lowered voice when he let go, and watched the other cross his arms. “First of all—I don’t see how this is your problem. Second of all, if you think that galavanting around this whole fucking district in search of one woman, who’s probably dead by now, is reasonable, then I seriously don’t know what to tell you.”

Daud tightened his lips and quickly threw a glance over his shoulder at the boy, who looked incredibly lost as he fiddled with the hem of his ragged shirt. “Yes, well, don’t let him hear any of that.”

“Oh, so you lied to him?”

“Well, I had to get him to come with me somehow.”

Corvo couldn’t decide which scenario in his head was stranger: a child tagging along with Daud, or Daud picking up a child on the street. As it seemed, the second one was closest to reality. 

“And what do you intend to do with him, then?”

Daud shrugged. “Drop him off somewhere. Find some good people who’ll take him in.”

This whole situation was getting stranger by the minute. “Why?” It wasn’t that he didn’t think the boy needed help, just— “Why are you doing this?”

“He needs a home.”

The last thing Corvo expected was to be suddenly rooted to the spot by Daud’s stare of intense, piercing earnestness.

“Or,” he continued after a moment, “at the very least, some food and a place to sleep. We can’t leave him on his own, especially not here.”

That was the truth, the reasonable thing to do, no matter how Corvo looked at it. Getting ahold of himself quickly, he sighed and rubbed his eyes, trying to simultaneously fit this new development in his mind and also bear with the fact that they wouldn’t be leaving this Void-forsaken district for quite some time. Not really succeeding in either, he crossed his arms and absentmindedly shook his head, at this point too spent to do anything other than just go with the flow. A clunky and ungainly one, but, he supposed, a flow nonetheless. “Fine. Sure.”

Daud stayed silent for a long moment, and Corvo acutely felt the weight of his eyes on him. “How was Byrne?”

A shrug, another shake of his head. “The Abbey being the Abbey. He’d drown the whole Empire in his beloved Strictures if he had the chance, what can you expect of him. But I have the combination.”

“Good.” At that, Corvo nodded, drumming out a heedless rhythm with the fingers of his left hand on his bicep as he stared somewhere ahead on the floorboards. “You’ll figure it out.”

Daud’s voice, Corvo has found, had a curious quality of being able to easily pull him out of the momentary trances he let himself slip into. He raised his eyes. “Huh?”

“Byrne. The Abbey. It’ll be fine.”

Corvo’s eyebrows tentatively crept up. “You’re the last person I’d expect to hear something like this from. Considering your views on the Abbey, especially.”

Daud shrugged. “Just, now that there’s a reason, looks like you’ll be keeping an eye on them in earnest now, that’s all.”

He’ll make sure he would. Corvo nodded again, then turned his head to see how their little guest—what did Daud call him?—was doing. The boy was sitting with his back against the wall under the window and hugging his knees to his chest. He looked like a small ball of loneliness and Corvo’s heart lurched at the sight. Such a small being, with barely any sense in that small head of his, and already his eyes glistened with a sadness that no child should know. There was a meekness about him, it showed most clearly in the way he huddled into himself like he was trying to disappear.

At his age, Emily ran wild. It took the entirety of Jessamine’s iron will to hold her empress’ composure and not break into chase after Em as she stomped her restless little feet around Dunwall Tower. Corvo remembered so clearly the way her laugh would ring like silver bells, the way she would launch herself at him whenever he’d come to see her after a long day of working and she’d pound her little fists on his leg for him to sweep her up into his arms.

He couldn’t physically find joy in those memories at the moment, not when before his very eyes was a clear example of what a child’s life should never be like. 

Cursed, cursed Dust District.

“Migel.”

Both Corvo and the boy perked up at Daud’s call and Migel’s expression shifted into something hopeful and even lively when his eyes fixed on his form. The latter gave a beckoning nod and Migel rose up and crossed the room in several quick steps to stand before the two men.

“We’re gonna figure something out for you, hm?”

Just that sentence was enough to make the boy beam. “Okay,” he said.

Daud smiled and reached down to lightly muss his hair, and Corvo thought that this day couldn’t get any stranger.

This was a good kind of strange, however.

*

He kept thinking about that smile.

And not only that particular one, but also a few other ones that Migel induced in Daud in the past couple hours as they, admittedly unhurriedly, traversed the roofs after taking some time to decide the next course of action back at the apartment. Sure, Corvo’s seen this man express... _emotions_ before, but not much beyond a controlled scoff or a grin, or a traitorous flicker of something more vulnerable in his eyes that tended to evaporate before Corvo really had a chance to discern it. This here was different. A pure impulse, expressions so natural and unguarded that the little urchin responded in kind, and Corvo had to admit to the tug of relief he felt at the sound of the child’s laughter.

Still, if anyone ever told him that he would someday see the Void-damned Knife of Dunwall with a giggling child sitting on his shoulders, then he wouldn’t have minded undergoing the Trials of Inaptitude and accusing them of heresy himself. So it was that Corvo could barely believe his eyes.

And while he could easily blame this oddity on the way the dust messed his head, he didn’t, because, he found, he didn’t at all mind it.

Migel didn’t talk all that much—considering the kid’s first impression, Corvo would be surprised if he did—but quickly grew comfortable around him as well and didn’t hesitate to ask a few questions. Surprisingly, he also wasn’t afraid of heights.

Probably, having the chance to see his temporary guardians _do magic,_ as he called it, overshadowed anything else.

Avila Avenue was a huge strip of more or less neutral territory where more regular people could be seen out on the street than in other parts of the district. Currently, the three were slowly making their way along the Avenue’s rooftops and trying to assess the overall situation—the only thing of note was a small group of people that loitered in the distance by some wooden barricades.

“Why do you wear this thing?”

Corvo turned his head to find the boy staring at him curiously while his hands fiddled with Daud’s hair. Corvo had to put in effort to stifle a snort at the sight. “Hm?”

“Why do you wear the thing on your face?” Migel repeated.

“Ah—the mask?” Corvo thought how to answer. “I guess I just like it.”

Daud snorted. Corvo almost rolled his eyes and ignored him.

“Why?” the kid pressed.

“Well, you see, sometimes people just like certain things. Don’t you like things?”

“I like Sam.”

“Who’s Sam?”

“My rat.”

Huh. “I see. Where is he?”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh.” Corvo frowned. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“Well— He fell from a window and his foot fell off. I dropped him.”

At that, Daud turned his attention away from the street for a moment and joined in the conversation. “His foot did what now?”

“Fell off!”

“Well I hope you didn’t have to see that,” Daud said. 

“No, I did, but then I lost him. I still like him, though.”

“I’m sure you can… find yourself a new rat,” Corvo followed, eyebrow raised.

“Sure. But Sam’s not _really_ dead, he’s made of wood.”

“Oh. That makes more sense.”

“He’s just lost. And without a foot.”

“Ow,” Daud said when Migel pulled on his hair a bit too hard, and then gripped the boy by the torso to lift him off his shoulders and set him down on the roof’s tiling. “Stay here with Corvo for a bit. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Wha—”

“I’ll go check out those barricades,” he clarified before Corvo could finish the question and immediately jumped off the roof (at which Migel gasped loudly), crossing a good chunk of the wide street’s distance in midair before blinking onto a balcony on the other side, then up onto the roof, and soon disappeared from view.

When he returned shortly with news of a makeshift shelter, Migel climbed onto his back again and the three of them started on what Corvo hoped was the actual last stretch of this part of their journey.

*

“No, listen, If Paolo gets his way, the law will mean even less than it does under the Duke.”

“Eh… The Abbey, the Howlers, what’s the difference? They’re all bastards.”

The shelter was, in part, a soup kitchen—the civilians talked among themselves as they stood or sat around, or waited in line, holding their own bowls or cups or whatever else they could get their hands on. The woman serving the soup itself looked cleaner and more respectable than everyone else gathered here, and Corvo and Daud didn’t waste any time approaching her makeshift station. 

“The soup is only for the workers and their families,” the woman said in a strict voice. She took a bowl out of the hands of the man whose turn it was in line and filled it with his meal, then threw them a fleeting glance. “These people haven’t been fortunate. Something tells me that doesn’t apply to you two.”

“No,” Daud agreed, then let Migel jump off him and gently pushed him forward. “But to this individual, it does.”

Migel shrunk back against Daud’s leg, but his eyes were glued to the large soup canister on the table. The woman shot Daud another suspecting glance, then took one look at the boy and hurried to snatch a bowl from a mismatched stack behind her and filled it nearly to the brim, then handed it to him. Clearly, she knew hunger when she saw it. 

“Children have priority,” she said and went back to serving civilians while Migel gulped down the bowl’s contents at a speed so high broth trickled freely down his chin. Daud patted his shoulder and gently told him to slow down, lest he choke on it.

“Thank you,” Corvo said and the woman only nodded curtly. “We’d—”

“I’m a little busy at the moment, mister.”

It was then when Corvo’s eyes fell on the sign with the words _Shindaerey Peak Miners’ Family Committee_ set up a bit farther off. 

Oh, they were definitely in the right place, he now saw.

He brought his gaze back to the woman, eyeing her with a new level of thoroughness. “…Lucia Pastor, right?” he tried, hoping that he remembered correctly. Based on the stare she fixed him with, the name was accurate.

“Anne!” she turned her head somewhere to the side and called, then jerked her head in a beckoning motion. “Take over.”

When another, younger woman came and took her place at the soup station, Lucia Pastor patted her hands on her apron and motioned for Corvo to follow, then headed out of the main area. He glanced at Daud and when the other nodded, went after her.

“I’d ask you to take off your mask,” arms crossed, she said when they stopped in a corner with no one in the close vicinity.

“I can’t do that.”

“Hm. I figured as much. Considering who you are, I don’t know whether to feel honored that you recognize me or to yell at you for propping up the Duke while he’s shitting all over Serkonos.”

That wasn’t what Corvo expected to hear. He left the accusation hang around in the back of his mind, for now. “And… who do you think I am?”

Lucia huffed. “I’m not stupid. Whether the newspapers and the posters in the street are right or wrong, I know who you are. Besides, our mutual acquaintance mentioned you— But don’t worry, it’s all completely confidential.”

Alright, that turn of events he could live with. “Is Doctor Hypatia here?”

“No, not at the moment. But she’s doing very good work for the people here. I must thank you for providing her with a temporary place of stay.”

Corvo nodded. “And I thank you for helping the people here.”

“Yes, well, these people shouldn’t need my help. I hope you’re here to end Luca Abele’s tyranny. Either way, we haven’t been sitting around waiting for you to clean up your mess.”

“Rest assured, that’s exactly what I’m here to do.” Lucia nodded at that, solemn but approving. “But it sounds like you have a plan.”

“No, nothing that solid. Not yet. But I do believe the Duke will fall, eventually. Now, since you’re here, all I can say is when you reach the Grand Palace, just be aware that not everyone there is your enemy. Trust your judgment.”

“Alright. I’ll remember that.”

“Anyway, good luck, Lord Attano. There’s still a chance to make something new here in Karnaca. Something that serves everyone, not just some rapacious bastard with a title.”

“That’ll take time,” Corvo said with a sigh. He left unsaid the developments Daud and him have set in motion in the Dust District.

“Indeed, it will. I certainly hope that doesn’t scare you.” 

He saw no point in wasting his breath on attempts to prove himself to her. Empty words didn’t matter now, anyway. “Let me backtrack a bit—the boy we brought here. His name is Migel.”

“It’s good that you brought him in. Between what the Duke did, and now the Howlers and Overseers fighting over the area, the streets are no place for a child.”

“Right. He needs a place to stay.”

“I don’t doubt that. Anything with respect to his family?” 

“He was found on his own. There was mention of a mother, but...” Corvo shrugged.

Lucia nodded with understanding. “I see. I’ll make certain she’ll be kept an eye out for.”

“Thank you. I’d just like to be sure that the boy will be in good care.” 

“You can be sure of it. We don’t throw people out onto the streets here.” 

When they came back out into the soup serving area, Corvo saw that Daud managed to find a free spot on one of the benches. Migel was sitting next to him, and the two appeared to be talking.

“Who’s that man?” Lucia asked.

“My associate.”

She only hummed, then approached the sitting pair with Corvo in tow. “The boy can stay here,” she said when Daud raised his eyes to her, and the man nodded before turning back to Migel.

“Well, this is your stop.”

“Are you staying?”

“No, I’m afraid I can’t.” 

Migel’s forehead crinkled with the strain of childish dismay. “Why?…”

“There’s lots of things I need to do. I’m sorry.” 

Lucia leaned forward, placing her hands on her knees. “You’re Migel, right? Nice to meet you. I’m Lucia.” The boy sniffed and turned his head to her. Once again, he looked lost, and for a brief moment Corvo loathed to have to leave him here. “These gentlemen are on very important business. But they want you to be safe, and you’ll be very safe here. You’ll stay with me and we’ll look for your mother, alright?”

Migel rubbed his nose and seemed to gather his thoughts before giving a small nod. He looked like he was ready to cry but held out against it.

“That’s right,” Daud told him, then reached over to wipe a small patch of dirt off Migel’s cheek with his thumb. “This is a good place. You’ll be alright.”

“Come, now. Say bye-bye, Migel,” Lucia prompted.

His voice was small and thin, and he sniffed softly. “I’ll miss you.”

Daud smiled again, small but genuine, and ruffled Migel’s perpetually messy hair. “I’ll miss you too, kiddo.”

When he got up from the bench, Migel followed, and, after a moment, went up to Corvo.

“Bye-bye.”

Corvo couldn’t repress a small bittersweet smile of his own, and reached down to pat the top of Migel’s head. “Bye-bye,” he echoed. “You be good here. Do what Lucia says.”

The boy sniffed once more and nodded, and Corvo heard how, somewhere behind him, Daud quietly gave Lucia his thanks. 

Wasting no time, they left right away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wahh


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When will corvo get to rest

“Just how long does it take to get rid of one man?” 

The sun was going down and Billie met them just where they had left her near Batista Outlook. “I even managed to make a trip to the _Wale_ and back.” 

“We ran into some... difficulties,” Corvo said, wondering if Daud was going to elaborate. He didn’t.

Billie handed each of them a bread roll and Corvo could kiss her right then for he realized how hungry he was. He dug in right away, and Daud wasn’t far behind as well. “I can see that. What of the combination?”

“We got it.”

“Who’d you help?”

“Byrne.”

“Really?...” Billie shot Daud a glance, as if looking for confirmation, and the man only shrugged. Corvo really didn’t feel like explaining, so he just waved her off. “…Alright, whatever works, I guess.”

“Yes. The important thing is that we now should be able to get into Stilton’s.”

“Good. But tell me about Paolo.”

“He had the hand of Granny Rags on him, as a sort of talisman,” Daud said in the break from chewing. “Made him able to turn into a swarm of rats and cheat his first death.”

“Shit, you’re serious?” Billie scoffed and the other hummed in confirmation. “That’s certainly a strange… souvenir from Dunwall.” 

Having finished up with the food, they moved out and crossed the plaza over to the locked gate. The combination proved accurate and, as they entered into the spacious yard before the manor, the heavy doors closed behind them with an unsettling slam.

Corvo couldn’t put his finger on it, but it felt like something has shifted.

What held most of his attention was the immediate sensation of dull, cold hollowness in his left hand that was all too similar to how it felt after having his Mark stolen in Dunwall Tower.

Evidently, he wasn’t the only one feeling the effect of this place, because in the next moment Billie hissed like she’s just been burned and gripped the side of her head. 

“Billie,” Daud called, concerned, “what’s wrong?”

Her face contorted in a grimace and she blinked her eye hard several times. “I didn’t prepare for this prosthetic eye to start giving me random headaches.”

Daud only breathed out a grunt of empathetic disapproval, then raised a left hand of his own. “Something’s not right.” He clenched his fist and watched a small puff of blue evaporate in the air.

Corvo mirrored the experiment and nothing happened. 

Their powers were blocked.

“This place is cursed, somehow,” he said. “Cracked. I can feel the Void seeping in.”

“Just what the fuck happened here?” Billie muttered when she finally looked around, sweeping her eye over the courtyard. Heaps of dust spread over the marble steps like a blanket, the manor itself was overgrown with ivy and moss.

To say the place looked abandoned would have been an understatement. 

As soon as they entered into the dark and similarly overgrown foyer, Billie staggered.

“Outsider’s eyes.” She stood, dumbfounded, and stared at a small dusty table that lay knocked over on the floor. “Are you seeing this?”

“Seeing what?”

“The...” Billie waved her hands loosely at the table, “it’s... moving. Distorting. Jumping and scattering and— _oh.”_

She grimaced in pain and palmed along the edges and the flesh around her sliver eye. “It’s not just this table, it’s... I feel like this whole place isn’t fully real.”

Daud looked positively confused, intermixed with suspicion. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know! It’s like everything is... shifting. Not physically. And not everything at once, just bits and pieces, but it’s like nothing is… secure.”

Corvo frowned. “Just what kind of mess did Delilah drag this place into?”

“All the more reason to find out,” Daud sighed and raised a hand to request a moment of complete silence as he listened with narrowed eyes in the absence of Void sight—it was dead silent. 

“Seems like no one’s h—”

He was interrupted by a strained male voice resounding somewhere in the distance. 

“I know you think I don’t belong here! Insufferable elitists!”

Billie’s eye widened with recognition. “Stilton!” 

“They drop food for me. In and out like the wind. I think they’re afraid. We’ll be getting started soon. The Duke’s beloved is coming back.”

“He’s alive. Though doesn’t sound exactly well,” Billie supplied, and Corvo hummed in assent, frowning.

It didn’t take long to find the lost owner of the manor, sitting at the grand piano in one of the rooms and blabbering gibberish to himself. He was in rough shape—mussed up hair, a matted beard, an abnormally pale face—even in this dark, it was obvious. Part of the room, however, was slashed by a wide ray of white light from a single projector that lay on its side, so bright that Corvo had to squint to see anything at all.

“Stilton!” Billie rushed up to the man as soon as she entered and called in attempt to get his attention. _“Aramis!”_

“There are whales down in the mines, I hear them howling to one ano—”

“Snap out of it, damn it!”

“—ther. Swollen beasts.” Stilton shook in a short spasm, then pressed his finger down on a key on the untuned piano. Billie made a wry face at the irritating sound and lifted his hand off of it. “How did I get so old? Where are the men of my younger days? The dances we had here.”

Grabbing his face and turning him towards her had no effect on the attempt to bring out any level of recognition. 

“He’s out of it, Billie,” Daud said, his brow furrowed and arms crossed. “There’s not much you can do for madmen.”

“I just want to know what in the Outsider’s name got to him like that.”

_”He would pluck out his own eyes if it would help him forget what he saw.”_

“Put that thing away, will you?” Stilton spat as soon as the Heart spoke and Corvo gave a start, covering his breast pocket with his hand on impulse. “Grotesque. Yes, yes! I can see it. The others can’t, can they?”

Billie narrowed her eye. “What thing?”

“Some nonsense,” Corvo drawled absently after a moment’s silence, frowning at Stilton’s back while the Heart gave a beat in a response of its own.

Things were certainly strange here.

_”He is trapped inside himself.”_

“Put it away!”

 _It is away, you lunatic,_ Corvo almost snapped but held his tongue in time. 

“Well, there’s not much to do here, clearly,” Daud spoke up and took one more look around the room. “Looks like a trip around this place is in ord—”

All of a sudden, Corvo’s ears plugged as if he was submerged into water, then something coursed through his body and he saw all color getting sucked out of the surroundings as time stopped. Judging by Daud and Billie’s reactions, they felt the same.

 _Saw_ the same.

On top of the piano sat the Outsider.

“Three years ago something inside Aramis Stilton snapped like a cheap lock,” the god said as if he’s been sitting here all along, conversing with the walls. After a few seconds he effortlessly climbed, _glided_ off the piano. “A part of him and a part of this house never left that evening. The Duke’s inner circle are still gathered here, setting their grand plan into motion. Delilah’s plan. And part of Aramis Stilton is always here, still breaking.”

Billie was looking at the Outsider with more mistrust Corvo’s seen in anybody’s expression in a long time. Daud only stood with his arms crossed, eyes narrowed in concentration and following the new object of interest.

“The Void,” the god continued, “is not exactly a place, and it’s much older and stranger than you could ever know.” For the briefest of moments, his gaze roamed over Billie and her scowl deepened at the attention. “It watches you from within. And at the heart of this house, the Void is leaking through a pinprick left behind by Delilah’s little trick.”

So something was indeed wrong, Corvo thought, to the point where even the Mark didn’t work. 

“Even magic is perverted here, and things don’t work like they should.”

A pause, in which Corvo decided to finally speak up. “Are you suggesting something?”

“Take this.” Something began to form in the air next to the Outsider and Corvo tilted his head in suspicion. “Imagine it’s a kind of… timepiece.”

The god motioned at the object lined with delicate mechanisms and three shards of thin glass jutting out on top. Taking it as an invitation, Corvo approached the contraption and took it carefully into his hands, watching in wonder as the sheets of glass folded into its frame. “Go and watch the Duke and Delilah. See for yourself what they did.”

Corvo didn’t get a chance to so much as open his mouth to set free the countless questions running through his mind, when the Outsider disappeared, just as he’s done time and time again. 

After a moment, time resumed and all three released an unrestrained gasp as the otherworldly push coursed through them once more.

“What—” Billie stared at the mechanism in Corvo’s hand. “Timepiece?”

Corvo ignored her, ignored everything as he tried to figure out what was going on and pushed a little lever on the device’s side to—

He sucked in a sharp breath and stumbled back as bright colors flashed at him out of the unfolded glass shards as if they were a window to the outside.

“Corvo, talk to us,” Daud said, voice low. “What do you see?”

Corvo ignored that too, because he then pressed another small lever below the first and felt his body being sucked into a single particle in matter and he could barely register his name being loudly called as suddenly, the same bright colors momentarily blinded him as they enveloped everything around. As soon as his vision cleared he saw expensive-looking furniture, he heard distant music, he saw the good condition of the room overall and how everything looked not deteriorated, not overgrown, not abandoned, but perfectly _normal._

“By the Void,” he muttered to himself as he stared, and then turned his attention back to the glass shards—lenses, of sorts, he supposed—that now showed the muted greys and greens of the room that he disappeared from only a moment ago.

“Mister Stilton?” he flinched at the female voice and turned his head towards the closed door, on the other side of which it resounded, “Your guests are waiting in the Study! The Duke is demanding refreshments and I cannot get in without the combination.”

A male voice picked up in the following silence. “There’s a note on the door, Captain Windlebonne.”

“What? Hm, he’s out back. I need the code to the Study.”

“It’s in his notebook, ma’am, but he keeps it with him.”

“Thank you, corporal. Speaking bluntly, I really don’t like Stilton’s guests. Earlier, I got my ass chewed out by the Royal Curator, what’s her name.”

“You’re talking about Breanna Ashworth, I believe.”

“Yes, that’s her. She’s an odd one. Anyway, keep up the good work.”

“Thank you, captain.”

 _What in the bloody Void—_ Corvo frowned at the so-called timepiece in his hand. Did the thing really transcend time? Was this what Stilton’s manor was like, three years ago, on the night of Delilah’s machinations?

With a slight shake of his head he sucked in another breath and pressed the second lever again, and clenched his teeth as his body felt once again like it was getting sucked into some invisible funnel.

When he got thrown out back into—the present?—whatever it was with Daud and Billie in it, he staggered and winced, trying to will down the rapidly growing desire to throw up.

“…uck’s sake, there you are.”

He wasn’t sure who said the words, just took a deep breath and finally raised his head to find the two staring at him, concern and mild trouble written across their faces. 

“What happened? You just disappeared.”

Corvo looked at Daud as the latter asked the question and shook his head with barely any comprehension of everything that just happened. “It sent me back… back in time?”

“Give me that,” Billie said and snatched the timepiece from his hand. With the lenses unfolded, she moved it around like some sort of lamp, staring into the glass intently. “This is Stilton’s house alright,” she muttered, “like it’s supposed to be. As it used to be.”

“So that’s how you’ll see Delilah,” Daud clarified in a half-questioning tone. “Makes sense. Kind of.”

Corvo could argue that, no, nothing made any sense, but by this point he didn’t know why he even bothered with trying to make sense of the Void and its trinkets.

“I’m testing this,” Billie said and in the next instant was gone on the spot.

Daud scoffed. “Well, at least she warned us.”

After a couple of moments she reappeared, though in a different place in the room. 

“I could see you both through this thing,” she said, then shot a glance at Stilton. “Well— three of you. It shows both timelines at once. And I don’t know if that’s got anything to do with it, but my headache spiked up as soon as I turned up there.”

“Might just be the effects of the time jump,” Corvo offered, but she shook her head.

“No, it’s my eye. I know somehow, I can feel it.” She looked into the lenses again, then, after a couple seconds, walked over to Corvo and suddenly grabbed him by the arm, but then disappeared again.

Corvo and Daud exchanged glances. 

“Shit,” Billie clicked her tongue when she reappeared immediately after, “only one person can use it.”

He’d be surprised if that wasn’t the case. At that, Corvo extended his arm expectantly and Billie eyed him with mild suspicion. “You don’t even know where to go in this house,” she said.

“I’ll find my way,” he assured her. “Just as I’ve done time and time before.”

She tightened her lips and sighed, then handed the device over. “Just find what that bitch did and how to fix it. The world’s had enough of her.”

Corvo hummed in assent, then threw a glance at Daud, who returned a firm nod.

“Don’t take too long,” the man said. “And don’t get dragged into any shit. Looks like we won’t be able to get you out.”

A soft scoff. “By this point I’d expect you to be more confident in my abilities, Daud.”

“Just making sure you keep your guard up.”

“Of course, of course.” With a raised eyebrow that went unseen behind the mask, Corvo walked out of the piano room and, looking through the lenses for a safe spot in the past, pressed the second lever.

*

It definitely took him time to adjust.

With all the confusion and the obnoxious amounts of bloodfly infestation in the present time’s manor, Corvo barely even understood how exactly he found his way to the back courtyard.

Back in 1849, the notebook lay open on the small table in the pavilion draped in red, and Corvo waited for the Aramis Stilton of the past to exit in order to talk to one the guards that came to inform him of something, then dropped down onto the railing from the rafters and quickly skimmed over the pages.

There was the combination to the Study, and—

_Aramis,_  
_I’ve made my arrangements for the séance. Delilah’s effigy is in place…I’ll return with Luca, Kirin, and Grim Alex…your silly doubts…start whether you’re there or not…_  
_\- Breanna_

The _guests_ were already in the Study, judging by the exchange he’d heard in the very beginning. Climbing back up onto the rafters with the needed information, Corvo took a moment to think. He’s heard Stilton talking to himself, having doubts about the séance, or whatever it was—based on the evidence, that was exactly what drove him mad that night. 

A fleeting thought occurred to him. Perhaps, if, say, he knocked the man out, he could save him from such a fate. 

The only problem was, he had no idea what ramifications that would have, if any at all. Time was a tricky, delicate thing, and the last thing he needed was to press the wrong button and watch everything fall apart. No—what was done was done. He would either see the séance exactly the way it happened, or not at all.

With the decision quickly made, he left the courtyard and headed back upstairs, on the way to the Study.

*

“Something— something is wrong,” Billie muttered under her breath as she paced around the room. She began blinking her eye rapidly again, then rubbed her temple. “Or, not _wrong,_ but just… strange. Like the two times are— overlapping, somehow.”

Daud frowned. Up until now, things have been moderately normal. “How can you feel it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain, and I still can’t use any of my powers but there’s this strain in the back of my right eye socket that’s almost like—” She stopped, furrowed her brow at the floor. “Almost like something’s been opened.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t know, Daud, I really don’t.” She rubbed her face, but the strain in it didn’t leave—it’s been more than an hour since Corvo left, and her headache’s only been getting worse. “But none of this is random, right? It shouldn’t be. Whatever Corvo’s doing must be having an effect on the rest of this place.”

Daud sucked in a slow breath. “If Delilah’s return made a tear the Void, whatever that means, and if what the Outsider said was any indication, then the place where it happened should be affected by it most.”

But why didn’t they feel it when they came in? 

“You said you felt like something’s been opened,” he leaned on the piano with his elbows and eyed Stilton’s form—the man quieted down, somewhat, and now only pressed random keys in some pattern only known to his sick mind—“if Corvo’s opened some can of worms like that, could we feel it all the way out here?”

“You tell me,” Billie said, “you know this shit better than I do.”

A scoff. “Trust me, Billie, none of us know nearly enough to make any definitive conclusions whatsoever.”

“Well— Fine, that sounds plausible. Maybe.”

“How’s your eye?”

“Worse.”

It was no surprise that, by this point, somehow the Void sliver in Billie’s socket was connected to the Void like nothing else that the three of them possessed—be it only connected to these leaks in time, or the Void itself, Daud didn’t know. Billie didn’t know either—all they knew was that now everything seemed to be connected somehow, and, frankly, that wasn’t a comfortable thought. 

“It’s almost as if,” she continued, “I’d feel it more if I went there myself. Feels like the closer to this source of disturbance I am, the more my eye reacts.”

“But you aren’t moving. In that case, then, it’s the disturbance that moves. Maybe it’s spreading.”

“Did we trigger something?”

“If anyone did, it’s Corvo. We aren’t doing anything.”

Billie chewed on her lip, folded her arms. “Well, if we can feel him stirring shit up, at least that means he’s still alive. Right?”

Daud only shrugged, unwilling to think about the contrary. 

He certainly hoped so.

*

It was only several minutes later that Daud felt a vicious pulse in his left hand. The sensation—it was almost painful—spread to his entire arm, right to the shoulder, and he hissed under his breath as he shook out his hand to try to ease the discomfort to no avail. 

He heard Billie’s gasp and figured that she felt something similar. They exchanged worried glances and then Daud pulled off his left glove to find his Mark steaming and burning without actually damaging the flesh. 

He still couldn’t _do_ anything with it, it was still completely useless, so what—

“The fuck are you doing, Corvo?” he muttered absently under his breath as he flexed his fingers and massaged his palm and wrist to try to get rid of the light pain. The sensation dulled after a few moments, just slightly— Still, he didn’t deem the relief enough to make him stop being concerned.

“Is Corvo alright?!”

Somehow, it was much easier to accept this concern as his own when he knew that Billie shared it.

“I don’t know, Billie. I don’t know.”

*

Daud has never considered himself an impatient man.

Patience could go a long way, at times—mostly, it helped to keep himself sane in situations out of his control.

He could not recall, however, many situations where he felt as powerless as he did now.

It’s only been a half an hour or so since the strange pulse shot in his and Billie’s hands, and already he felt infuriated by the cold, creeping feeling of inactivity and complete lack of ability to find out what in the Void’s name was going on and if Corvo was fucking okay.

There were many reasons to hate the Outsider as it was, but if the black-eyed bastard has sent him to his death—

“Daud.”

He gave a start, shooting Billie a questioning glance. 

“You alright? This is your third cigarette in a row.”

“Yeah, I’m—” 

No, he wasn’t fucking alright. 

And at this point, he couldn’t be bothered to care why.

“You don’t usually smoke indoors.”

He waved Billie off and continued pacing behind the piano, absently listening to the untuned notes that Stilton still pressed on the keyboard, and it was a wonder how the sounds haven’t yet driven him mad. Taking a tense drag on his cigarette, he examined—or tried to distract himself with, more like—the roots prodding through the floor in the corner. 

This was one shit hole of a situation.

They could be waiting here for hours and not know if there was a point in it. They had no way of knowing what exactly took place roughly half an hour ago—as far as Daud was concerned, this whole manor was just full of bloodflies and a shit ton of nothing, and trying to find Corvo in the past without a timepiece— bah, _trying to find Corvo in the past_ — he couldn’t even believe how ridiculous that sounded.

Time and time again he found himself wishing that he could summon the Outsider on a whim just to yell in his face. He certainly hoped that the bastard would appear at one point or another to at least fill them in—if he went so far as to connect Daud with Corvo, then surely he would show up to inform him if something’s happened to the Lord Protector? Right?

Thoughts drummed against his skull like mad and he was expecting a headache of his own by this point. The Mark still didn’t work—and even if it did, it would be just as useless since not one bit of the black magic at his command would do even a thing to mend the situation.

He didn’t know what this tug in his gut was, didn’t care to pay any attention to it, but if one thing was clear it was that, even after fifteen whole years, he found that he wasn’t prepared to deal with any scenario in which something happened to Corvo Attano.

*

He didn't know how much time has passed, but when Corvo finally showed up in the broken doorway, relief surged over him like icy water.

After sitting for a time on the floor he was up on his feet in an instant, and he was thankful for Billie’s antsy “There you are. What happened?” for his own mouth couldn’t form any words whatsoever.

Corvo pulled off his mask and there was a strange wildness in his eyes, framed by the perpetual tinge of exhaustion. Daud should have had countless questions on his mind, should have been asking him what he saw, what he found, but all he could think was that this man has had fucking enough. 

Corvo jerked his head in a sort of shake, walked over to the piano and carelessly dropped the timepiece onto its lid.

“Let’s just get out of here,” he said, sounding simply spent and Daud could tell from his voice that he got the information he needed, and also that it was the last thing that mattered right at this moment.

“About damn time,” he agreed.

Billie spoke up then. “What about Stilton?”

“He went mad,” Corvo replied.

“I can see that.”

The man spread his hands before letting them fall limply to his sides. “I’m sorry.”

She chewed on her cheek and eyed the former mine baron. Aversion bubbled in her words. “Delilah needs to go down.”

“She will,” Corvo assured, “and the Duke. And then we’ll come back for Stilton.”

She nodded once, placed her hand on Stilton’s shoulder and gave a light squeeze. “Let’s go,” she said. “You can tell us everything in the skiff.”

They were all eager to leave this cursed place, Daud was sure.

On their way out of the room, Corvo breathed an unhappy huff and shook his head. 

His voice was quiet. “You should’ve just killed her, Daud.”

He looked so fucking tired. Daud barely caught himself on a whim to reach out and rub Corvo’s shoulder reassuringly, and, surprised and even shocked by the unwarranted urge, he repressed it in time. 

“I know,” he said instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I wanted to get this mission over with so this chapter is kinda rushed, sorry about that. It also might be a bit confusing, but the first time Billie feels that something is wrong/something’s been opened is when Corvo gets to the study room. The time when Daud and Billie get a pang in their arms and get worried is when Corvo falls through into the Void and then talks to the Outsider—I moved that to an earlier place and decided that would happen on his way out of the Study. I don't know how I feel about this whole thing but I played around with all three of them feeling the Void pulling some shit sooo that's something?
> 
> Second of all, (rant inc) I... don’t like the concept of time travel and alternate timelines. Like at all. (Not just in this universe but pretty much everywhere lmao, no offense to those who do.) Not only do I find it really confusing most of the time, but it also tends to cheapen the experience for me, especially when it’s used to fix something in the past, like, _oh we made some mistakes?? that’s fine, just go back and fix them, it doesn’t matter:DD_ ummm no. Decisions have ramifications and in this particular case, Stilton made the decision to go to that seance, and Billie made the decision to try to find him and lose her arm and eye in the process, and Corvo already made the decision to assist Byrne and he _also_ has already made the decision to turn a blind eye to the state of affairs in Karnaca so all of this could happen in the first place. Undoing all of this, for me, unfairly erases the weight of all those mistakes and for this reason I didn’t make Corvo knock Stilton out. Plus, if Stilton was made fine and well and thus the state of affairs in Batista was improved, how would that figure in with the Overseers? Where would they go? Would they still be there, or would they just disappear (??) because if Stilton was there all along there wouldn’t even be an Overseer-Howler conflict? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ idk, but what I do know is that Corvo, naturally having had no idea that he was gonna fuckin go back in time only a few hours afterwards, gave Batista to Byrne and now has to live with it. What’s done is done >:)
> 
> ANYWAY, phew, that was a rant. But hey, at least Daud is somewhat coming along:DD


	18. Chapter 18

Nobody went to bed right away that night.

After roughly an hour of exclamations and outbursts brought on by Corvo’s recount of events at Stilton’s manor, the _Dreadful Wale_ quieted down as its four inhabitants lost themselves in the disbelief in their own heads all over again, wondering at the very capability to be surprised by anything anymore.

But now they were on the last stretch, it looked like—they only had to reach out and snatch Delilah’s soul from the Duke, cage it like a bird, then force it back into its owner, and only then have a chance of killing her, ending her, putting her to rest, permanently this time. 

It all sounded so terribly outlandish and so deceivingly easy at the same time. So simple. Daud was no fool, however, as to give in to this illusion, this _lie,_ to think anything other than the fact that whatever was to follow would drain not only himself, not only Corvo and everyone else involved, but the Empire itself. In such a short span of time they’ve changed so much and more was bound to follow, and anyone who thought that with Delilah’s death they could take a deep breath, lie back, and relax was stupidly naive.

Wasn’t the first time enough? Just how in the Void did he get dragged into this?

Yes, he still could barely believe it. 

And no, for some reason, he didn’t regret it in the slightest. 

A recently opened bottle of whiskey he’d brought from the city a few days ago kept them company—midnight’s already come and gone and it didn’t take long for Sokolov to retire to his room, with Billie following suit shortly after having downed another glass.

It was late, and he probably should have gone to bed a long time ago, but the whiskey was good and he hasn’t had any in a few months and they weren’t planning to go after the Duke the next morning, anyway. So he stayed where he was.

And so did Corvo. 

Both of them stared somewhere inward and unseeing, sipping unhurriedly on the drink, the silence comfortable and not at all pressing. All has been said—the god of the Void was once mortal, just a kid with a slit throat; Delilah’s soul was locked away, making her body by itself imperishable, and she was now part of the Outsider. Whatever that meant. All this new information seemed so complicated, all these explanations didn’t explain a damn thing and were so confusing and random, and Daud couldn’t have been happier to have this brief moment of relaxation.

Ten minutes passed, or maybe thirty, or maybe an hour. All has been said, but maybe Corvo thought otherwise, because he swirled the liquid in his tumbler and, with his gaze still fixed on how the dim light of the lamp gleamed through it, took a breath of a sort that could only mean the start of conversation.

He hesitated, or at least Daud interpreted it that way, before taking another small breath and shooting him a glance.

“Do... do you have children?”

The question sounded unsure, insecure in a way, and Daud was surprised by that more than the inquiry itself.

“Haven’t had any, no.”

Corvo nodded and took a sip, still staring somewhere ahead. 

“Why?” Daud asked.

“Just curious.”

A minute passed, or maybe ten. Daud almost forgot about the question, when a follow-up came.

“Back in Batista,” Corvo began, pausing in between words as if mulling them over, “you knew you’d have to let Migel go at one point. Truth be told, I’d have expected you to distance yourself. Not show him anymore kindness than was necessary, not give him any… friendliness to only break it off afterwards. You saw the look on his face when you told him you had to go, you saw the dejection—was it worth it?”

It was logical to reason in that way, Daud understood. It was easy to see how false hope, or only a few moments of something resembling happiness amidst the surrounding nothingness could do more harm than good in the long run. And he would have thought the same, he supposed, if all the people he had taken in long ago over the years have grown up in different circumstances.

He tapped out a light rhythm with his fingers on the side of his glass, to help him think. “For people who don’t have much, especially young children like that, you’d be surprised how a small bit of kindness can keep them going. He’s much better off in the shelter than he was just prior to that and, at the very least, he‘ll have a few fond moments to remember and ground himself in. Without those, people harden.” And then, ultimately, break.

“And you have experience with that,” Corvo concluded, though his tone was half-questioning.

Daud took a sip, slow and methodical. “You remember the Whalers?”

“Of course.”

“Kids, all of them. Orphans. Dunwall cast-offs. Most of them no older than their early twenties.”

Corvo tensed. Just barely, almost unnoticeable, but Daud saw. “Billie mentioned something like that, briefly.”

A nod. “I gave them what I could. It wasn’t much, and it wasn’t bright, but it was home. Something to push off of.”

“You made them kill,” Corvo said, after a moment’s silence, without any clear accusation in his voice but Daud felt it anyway.

“I didn’t make them do anything.”

Another pause. Corvo finished his glass and reached for the bottle again to fill it back up. 

“You’ve seen the anger in Billie,” Daud continued. “The hate. You’ve felt it. I didn’t put it in her. Only led it in the right direction, fostered it, even. I wish I hadn’t, but she had nothing else and she met me.”

“That’s a unique thing to take credit for.” 

“It’s the truth.”

Corvo let out a breathy hum. “What about the others?”

“Similar story.”

“And Migel?”

“He can still have something good going for him. No need to ruin that. If he’s lucky, he’ll have some kind of future.”

“You tried to make sure of that.”

Daud raised his eyes and found the other finally looking at him straight on. He shrugged. 

Corvo continued, still slow and almost uncertain, “I’d never expected you to help anyone like that, if I’m honest.”

“Well, can’t say I’m surprised. You don’t exactly know me.”

They eased back into silence. Truth be told, it surprised Daud that Corvo was still up. He doubted that sleep wasn’t on the man’s mind, but maybe what he saw at Stilton’s was enough to keep him here, awake, worrying the square-cut glass with his long fingers.

His presence was soothing, in a way. Daud couldn’t really explain it, not when his mind was slowly, subtly getting muffled with cotton and the sting on his tongue turned into balmy warmth.

“When I saw the Outsider in the Study,” Corvo spoke up after a while in an absentminded voice, “he told me I’ll have to do something what might be the hardest thing in my life.”

Daud let the words hang in the air as he unhurriedly, lazily thought them over. “Well, I can’t imagine deposing a usurper is easy, even if you’ve done it once before.” 

“No, no, he meant something different.”

“And you didn’t ask him?”

“What’s the point?”

“He’s some bastard, but sometimes he answers.”

Corvo shrugged. “Didn’t even get the chance to, really.”

“Well if you weren’t gonna ask him in the first place, then stop worrying about it.”

“Like you stopped worrying about Delilah fifteen years ago?”

“Fair. But I doubt this is of a similar scale.” 

“I hope it isn’t.”

Maybe he was falling asleep, or maybe it was the alcohol talking, but Corvo’s voice assumed some lulling quality and Daud found his hasteless throaty rumbling quite soothing.

*

“I’m worried about Jess.”

“Huh?”

It wasn’t clear how much time has passed, but Corvo didn’t sound exactly sober and he himself was getting a bit bleary-eyed, so it must have been not all that soon.

“Jess.”

Daud frowned. That wasn’t much of a clarification, and— _oh._

“Who?” he asked with a growing inkling, hoping it wasn’t what he thought.

 _“Jess._ Jess. Jessamine. Jessamine Kaldwin.”

The name struck him like a series of slaps, once for each time it was said. 

But nothing came after it, no venom or spite in Corvo’s voice as he fixed the table with a blank stare. “She said her time was coming to end.”

Swallowing down a sudden pang of guilt brought on by the topic, Daud tried to focus on the new information. His own mind was still clear enough, so he was fairly confident in the fact that Corvo probably had one too many glasses and already wasn’t making any sense. “What are you on about?”

Corvo shot him a glance, giving the impression that he momentarily forgot that Daud was sitting right there, and then nodded to himself. 

“Right,” he muttered, “you don’t know.”

Daud was getting strangely alarmed, not even really knowing why. “Don’t know what?” he asked, watching as Corvo reached into his jacket in the chest area and pulled out... nothing.

Though his hand was shaped as if he was holding a large apple. Corvo stared at it like there was something there, and Daud’s frown deepened.

This whole thing got to his head, after all. The poor bastard went bloody mad.

Meanwhile, Corvo cupped his second hand around the air and slowly dragged his thumb over the imaginary object. “You can’t see it.”

“No, I can’t,” Daud said warily, as if to communicate with his tone that this was getting increasingly abnormal and Corvo needed to realize that. He gave a start when the latter suddenly reached and grabbed hold of his right hand, then brought it to his cupped one. The back of his left tingled with a dull spark in the Mark, but Daud barely noticed it.

“Can’t feel it, either,” Corvo said, monotone. Daud thought to do nothing but stare at him, wide-eyed.

“Corvo,” he said quietly, gingerly, “there’s nothing there.”

The man finally looked back at him and let go of his hand. “I know that’s how it seems to you, Daud. And stop looking at me like that, I’m not crazy.”

“I really, really hope you aren’t.”

They’d have problems if he was.

Corvo scoffed his usual scoff and Daud thought that maybe he wasn’t completely drunk yet. “No, no, this is a gift—gift? Can you call it that?—from the Outsider himself, mind you.” He emphasized the mention of the god with a theatrical flourish of significance in his tone. “From, heh, fifteen years back.”

Well, if he put it like that, the oddity was more or less in the realm of possibility. The Outsider had many tricks up his sleeve; if Daud hasn’t seen something in his time, that didn’t mean that something couldn’t be.

“What is it?” he asked quietly, already tense at the name and indicated timeframe.

“A heart,” Corvo replied matter-of-factly. _“The_ Heart. Jessamine’s. Well, not really hers, at least I don’t think, but… her essence is in there.”

Daud’s stomach dropped.

Suddenly, he couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that Corvo was sitting, right there, calmly talking, _talking_ to him at all, while allegedly holding a piece of Jessamine Kaldwin right at his breast. 

He stayed silent, not daring to say a thing. Even if he had anything to say, which he didn’t, he felt he didn’t have the right.

“It speaks to me,” Corvo continued with a calm note of wonder. “I don’t know if it’s really her spirit. It must be, the Outsider said so. It’s her voice. Her… mind.”

Silence followed, and Daud felt like he was expected to say something. And he was afraid, he found, he was afraid to speak.

The haunting of guilt just took on a whole new meaning.

Now, the realization that Corvo has been carrying around with him a literal reminder of his lover’s murder and drowning in it for fifteen years, threatened to snap him in half.

He swallowed, licked his lips, wanting to take a swig of whiskey to smooth the parchment in his throat but didn’t dare move. “If you recognize her,” he rasped, hating the words but finding them necessary to hold up the conversation in a logical manner, “then it must be her.”

Despite the situation, Corvo seemed rather nonchalant. He kept looking at the invisible object in his hands, his brow slightly furrowed with what looked like concentration. “Well, most of the time it’s like she’s right here, in my hands. Sometimes it says very strange things. But I guess that’s to be expected, considering this thing originated in the Void.”

Those last words pushed an idea onto him, and Daud almost didn’t want to, but he forced himself to blink his eyes hard and look with Void Gaze at Corvo’s hands. His suspicion was confirmed—indeed, in that small space was not even an outline, but the faintest of flickers, a trace, an aftertaste of a life that once was. It made the prospect that much more true, it made him see and accept the heart as real, and it hurt.

Oh, how he wanted to tell himself this was just a sick joke.

…And it was, wasn’t it? He supposed Corvo had it much worse. Carrying a… dead loved one in his pocket, a replacement, a constant reminder of stale hatred and the torment of personal failings and—

“I wish you could see it,” Corvo interrupted the stream of his thoughts. “Hear it.”

Daud’s mouth went even drier than it already was. He was surprised he could even find his voice at all. “Why?”

The other sat still, then shrugged, then reached for his glass to take a drink. The movement must have felt like unconscious permission, because Daud immediately, mechanically, gripped his glass as well, downed the rest of its contents in one go and grimaced at the fire in his throat—he welcomed it, it was better than nothing, a small momentary distraction. 

As soon as he set the glass down with a clink, Corvo filled it back up with two gurgling splashes from the bottle, then added some to his own, leaving the bottle half empty. 

“I don’t know,” he replied, and the hollowness of his words made it seem like he wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. A humorless huff, and then the words that followed changed that. “Maybe I— Maybe I want you to feel guilt, in its purest, strongest form.” His brow furrowed, and he very lightly and very briefly shook his head. “No, that’s not it. Or not all of it. Maybe I just want you to hear her voice and understand how wonderful she was.”

 _Don’t,_ Daud almost said, begged— _Corvo, please don’t._ But he deserved it, he deserved to hear it all, and he was a delusional fool to ever think that the only person he’d ever have to run from was himself. Of course, that was easy enough. Self-flagellation he could live with. Hatred he could live with. What he couldn’t possibly bear was seeing with his own eyes the lasting effects of how, with his very hands, he tore out someone else’s happiness. 

Maybe that was his biggest punishment. Maybe that day in the Flooded District, when Corvo stood over his bleeding and broken body and sheathed his sword, wasn’t a mercy at all. Maybe Corvo shouldn’t have been stupid, should have just killed him—it would have made everything so much easier for everyone involved.

“I know,” Corvo suddenly muttered under his breath and once again reached for Daud’s hand, and the latter let him, too stupefied by everything going on to refuse him—and why would he, anyway? He could only stare as Corvo pressed Daud’s hand, covered by his own, to the left side of his chest.

“You feel it?” he asked, his eyes on Daud’s like thick chains linking their stares together, and Daud could only suck in a breath as he, as if spellbound, focused to feel the relaxed rhythm of Corvo’s heart though the layers of fabric. Corvo’s palm was dry, hot and rough on his, and it felt as if every particle of skin on the back of Daud’s own caught a fire he couldn’t possibly ignore. “Its beat is synced with mine, sometimes. Like it is now. I don’t notice it, usually, but it is so. Do you feel it? Can you feel her?”

 _No,_ Daud almost said, but a sudden lump in his throat he couldn’t swallow blocked his voice. _No, not her. I can only feel you._

For both of their sanities’ sake, he nodded. 

Corvo nodded as well, then let go of his hand after a moment. He picked up his glass again, jiggled the drink in it, looked through the liquid. “You know, I… I lived with you in my head for all these years. I never stopped wondering where you were, what you were doing. What you were thinking. I think— I think, part of why I spared you back then lay in some sick sort of self torture, and I knew that even if I’d killed you on that day, it wouldn’t fix anything.” He licked his lips, and Daud barely registered himself breathing. “It wouldn’t help. Because nothing can avenge the murder of someone you love. Nothing. It’s as simple as that.”

 _I’m sorry,_ Daud heard running through his mind and hated how useless and insignificant the sentiment was. But there it was, twisting and spiraling in his head, filling his ears like water, blustering like waves, _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—_

“I’m sorry,” he said when his thoughts manifested into words, or maybe he didn’t; he just felt his lips moving and couldn’t tell if his vocal cords worked. But he realized that he never actually said the words until now, and while their uselessness crushed his chest with a bitter weight, the fact that he hasn’t said them was unacceptable.

Corvo stilled before closing his eyes for a moment, then opened them back up to briefly lock them with Daud’s. 

“I know,” he said quietly, and turned his gaze back to some nonspecific point in front of himself. “…I think. But it doesn’t matter.”

Daud knew that full well and still felt a traitorous pang in his chest.

“Because,” Corvo continued, and Daud briefly wanted to assure him that there was no need to explain, “I can’t possibly forgive that. Not ever. It doesn’t matter that it was you who killed her, it doesn’t matter that it was Burrows who paid you to do it, it doesn’t matter that you regret it— None of it matters because she’s dead and that’s it.” He raised his glass to his lips, but paused. “It’s not personal, it’s,” he scoffed with a drunken ease. “It’s the principle, dare I say. When someone you love dies, there’s… their death tears a hole in you that can never be filled, and there’s just nothing you or anyone else can do about it. So you just live with it. And I've learned to live with it, have been living with it, and it’s a part of me now and I miss her every Void-damned day, and if a time ever comes when I don’t any longer, it will only be when I’m dead.

“But I’ve also lived with you in my head, this whole time, wondering if she haunted you just as she haunts me. And of course I pretended that you were just a murderer not worth my time or mental energy, pretended that I didn’t care. I pretended that I’d forgotten all about you but we can never truly lie to ourselves, can we?”

Corvo finally took a long sip of his whiskey and Daud understood exactly what he meant. “No,” he agreed as soon as he found his voice. “No, we cannot.”

*

They drank more. Neither of them bothered to care about the next day, it seemed—they were too far gone to care about anything in the first place.

The edges of Daud’s consciousness blurred but he did a pretty good job of ignoring it in his perfectly still, sitting position. After a while it even went away. Maybe. 

“The Duke,” Corvo slurred, the sounds a jumbled mess, “is one huge sonuvabitch.”

Daud nodded weightily—two nods, slow and deep, in case his agreement wasn’t clear. “That he is.”

“Theodanis was a—” Corvo grimaced, seemingly to hold in a belch, “a good man. You remember Theodanis?”

“Of _course_ I remember Theodanis.” Daud nodded again. “He was a good man.”

 _“Yes,”_ Corvo said with a slightly raised voice and an emphasizing point of his finger, as though Daud just made a very good point. The latter pressed a finger to his lips and shushed loudly to remind that Billie and Sokolov were sleeping nearby, and Corvo waved him off. “A very good man. Cheers to that.”

“Cheers,” Daud agreed and clinked his glass on Corvo’s. “His son just isn’t it.”

“Nope.”

Corvo downed the rest of his glass and reached for the nearly empty—it wasn’t _that_ big in the first place, Daud reassured himself, so it was alright—bottle for the umpteenth time that night, and Daud managed to catch him by the wrist and shook his head. 

“You’re drunk,” he said.

“Yes, I am,” Corvo suddenly grinned. “And so are you.”

“Am not.”

A scoff, and Corvo’s shoulders shook like he just heard the funniest thing. “Yes, you are.”

“Alright,” Daud conceded, “just a little bit.” He held up his thumb and index finger to show just how little. Corvo nodded with grave understanding.

“Yes,” he said.

Alcohol was annoying, Daud thought time and time again over the course his life—with it, the tongue turned traitor and heavy and clumsy and couldn’t properly reflect the sharpness of his clear as crystal mind.

“No more whis—” he trailed off, and waved his hand loosely at the bottle, “of that.”

“Fine,” Corvo agreed and Daud mentally patted himself on the back for his spectacular persuasion skills. “But oh, would you look at the time.” Corvo looked around in search of a clock and then struggled and failed to hold in a yawn. “It’s time for bed.”

“Now that is a smart idea.”

Corvo hummed in assent and rose from his seat, supporting himself with his arms propped on the table, but stumbled and barely managed to catch himself in time.

“I’m fine,” he hurried to assure, “‘m fine. It’s all good.”

Daud clicked his tongue. “Fine, my ass,” he grumbled whilst also standing up and trying to move closer to Corvo to give him support at the same time, and gripped the edge of the table when he swayed on his feet and felt lightheaded. 

“No no no no, Daud, we can’t fall asleep here, we have to get to bed.”

“Then go to bed, smartass.”

“No, I can’t leave you, you clearly need help.”

 _“I_ need help?!”

It was in that moment when Corvo snaked an arm around Daud's shoulders, really just slumping against him, and poked a finger into his chest. “Yes, you do. You’re too stubborn.”

“And you talk too much.”

“Ugh.”

Somehow, they made it to Corvo’s cabin, because of course Corvo needed assistance to get there. Also, it was just a tad closer. 

As Corvo started working on his clothes Daud busied himself with looking around the small room that looked familiar from the time when, he remembered vaguely, he’d dragged an unconscious Corvo here—a desk, a cot, a makeshift shower stall in the corner. It was cramped, but cozy. Nice. 

“Shit,” Corvo hissed after a moment, and Daud turned his head to find him fiddling with the few square-shaped, gilded buttons on his jacket. Gilded? Or were they gold? “Who in the fuckery invented these, I would have words with him.”

“Tsk,” Daud came up to him and lightly batted Corvo’s hands away, squinting and biting down on the tip of his tongue while he worked on pushing the little nubs through the holes, and— there.

“There,” he solidified the thought by voicing it and admired his handiwork, though only several moments later noticed Corvo’s hands on his own red coat in return, his face scrunched up in concentration as his fingers worked the clasps.

It made perfect sense, Daud thought, since clothes were, as it turned out, a complicated contraption. 

It didn’t take too long—it was impressive, really, if he did say so himself—for them to start shrugging off their coats or jackets or shirts or whatever the fuck it was that they were wearing all the time and for Daud’s gaze to start quickly and absently gliding over Corvo’s scar-adorned chest, his taut abdomen, the trail of dark that disappeared under the waistband of his pants— The brief moment came and went, however, since Corvo turned away and began to clumsily kick articles of clothing on the floor away from the room’s center.

“Sleep,” he quickly turned his head and waved loosely at the cot, then ordered in a hoarse voice. “Go to sleep.”

That sounded reasonable, perfectly fine by him, Daud only thought as he fell onto the cot with a contented sigh. His heavy eyelids fell and refused to come back up—he just felt the cot dipping after a few moments and a warm body settling next to his, making him automatically scoot closer to the wall and in the process, naturally, turn slightly onto his side.

Cramped, but cozy enough. Nice.

It barely took a minute for Corvo to start snoring softly, having settled in with his nose tucked somewhere in the crook of Daud’s neck, and he was so warm, and his breathing was so peaceful and measured and lulling and Daud didn’t notice how he himself drifted off to sleep without a second thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want yall to know that I’m not sorry and that I had this chapter planned since the very beginning. 75k just to get here? Worth it. ~~Kill me~~
> 
> But also oh boy they are Not about to have a good morning :'''') help


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am doing everything but schoolwork and having a blast, enjoy the fruits of my procrastination

If his eyelids could make sounds, Daud imagined they’d screech and grate like rusted metal as he tried to open his eyes.

Seeing barely a sliver of light was enough to shoot a vicious headache into his skull and he clenched his eyes immediately, the minor motion turning into a grimace at the throbbing pain and the leaden weight of his eyelids. Laying on his stomach made it easy to burrow his face back in the thin pillow and he could only hope he could go back to his coma and sleep this mess off.

He didn’t know what he expected because, of course, going back to sleep was out of the question. 

Two minutes in (which seemed like two hours, really), and Daud would be positively pissed off if he wasn’t already. No one could sleep with this kind of pain; while lying still, his head throbbed and his muscles ached as if from terrible exertion a few hours prior, but any movement made everything even worse.

All he remembered without delving into details was that, last night, they were drinking, and that information was quite enough to make him curse the Outsider and swear to never again touch booze. 

How many times has he sworn that during his lifetime, again?

In the end, he decided that the position in which he lay wasn’t at all comfortable, and so he turned to his side with a groan tearing out of his chest. 

His throat was drier than Pandyssian deserts. He felt like saliva hasn't formed in his mouth cavity in years. Fortunately, he remembered that he‘d put a cup of water on the table about a day ago, so maybe it still had something in it. He shifted with effort, brought up his hand to shield his eyes from the natural but nauseating light as he opened them slowly once again, and—

This was not his room.

His frown deepened, he blinked his eyes a few times as if what he was seeing could be erased with the clenching of his eyelids, but still, the fact remained.

This was not his room.

 _Alright, well—_ He tried to prop himself up on the hard cot so he could look around the cabin more throughly and hopefully determine where he was—when he first arrived here, as he was looking around the ship, he obviously didn’t check the rooms of his new crew mates in order to preserve their privacy. And yet, the room looked very familiar. At first glance, there weren’t many personal belongings to tell him who the inhabitant of this cabin was, the position of the door told him nothing about the cabin’s location in relation to the rest of the ship, and for the umpteenth time in his life he cursed his tendency to fragmentary blackouts. 

Worse yet, he was stripped to the waist. He supposed that was harmless enough, only now stood the question of the location of his clothes. He pulled himself up to a sitting position, wincing at—everything, really, and with a silent screech of his neck as he turned his head it didn’t take him long to spot a few—three?...—boots strewn around the floor, as well as his coat thrown carelessly in the corner next to the shower stall.

That was all well and good, only, a short distance from his coat lay, crumpled, a couple of shirts and a jacket of an all-too-familiar dark blue. 

Daud spent a good couple of minutes recalling all the swear words and phrases so colorful even the Outsider’s very own ears would wilt upon hearing them. 

Oh, he did _not_ miss this feeling of simultaneously being torn apart by the dire need to know what happened the night before as if his life depended on it and the wish to be able to throw all this out of his head and not revisit it ever again.

Of all the damn things, waking up in Corvo’s bed was not at all what he expected. Where did Corvo sleep last night? On the floor? In _Daud’s_ cabin? That would have been totally fair, only, why they could have performed such a switcheroo, he had no idea.

He didn’t even dare think of the... other possibilities. 

Another thing he found puzzling was the fact that no one, especially not this very cabin’s current rightful occupant, bothered to wake him up.

On second thought, Corvo’s doing so was unlikely—the man was probably snoring into the next dimension at this very moment, wherever he was.

None of these fragments of rational thought made the situation any better, so Daud decided to finally stand up and try to do something about it—at this particular moment, that entailed simply getting up, gathering his clothes and getting dressed, and slipping out of this cabin without drawing any attention to himself. Easy.

Or, at least, it should have been, if not for the wave of nausea that soaked him from head to toe as soon as he stood up. As if the slight dizziness (and everything else he was suffering from, really) wasn’t enough, he could feel his stomach turning and hot bile rising to his throat and he winced to try to hold in a gag, spitting on any and all attempts at caution as he darted towards the door, flung it open and blazed around a corner towards the lavatory. 

His diaphragm threatened to jump out of his throat and he blinked the rest of the way to the door, not even having a chance to regret it when the transversal made his condition infinitely worse as he stumbled into the cramped room, and by some miracle managed to throw himself at the toilet in time for his stomach to start turning itself inside out.

Trying to guess just how much he drank was unnecessary, as he could see that it was, clearly, a lot.

He spent a good several minutes gagging and praying that his brain wouldn’t melt with the way it pulsed in his head, and when his body had nothing else to throw out, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand with a disgusted grimace. Then, sitting on the floor, he took some time to bring his breathing back under control, for a moment closing his eyes.

When he opened them back up and turned his head to the door, he found Billie leaning against the doorway, arms crossed and an expression of casual, lighthearted scolding on her face.

Daud let out a sheepish sigh of exhaustion and didn’t even bother to scramble for explanations or excuses he didn’t have.

“I’m too old for this,” he just said.

“Yes. Yes, you are.”

Daud sighed once more and shook his head helplessly, wishing for nothing more than for his headache to be gone and to just go back to bed. His own bed.

“Thanks for not barfing all over my ship, at least,” Billie continued, then swept her eye over the small room. “You gonna live in here now, or do you feel better?”

‘Better’ wasn’t at all the right word here, but at least bile wasn’t spilling out of him anymore, so Daud supposed that was a start. He just shook his head and stood up, feeling overly sensitive to any kind of movement but more or less succeeding in ignoring it. 

“What time is it?”

Billie gave an exaggerated shrug, as if to say it wasn’t at all important. “Around two.” 

He didn’t know when exactly he went to sleep, but he assumed that he spent a good several hours being knocked out. It wasn’t enough, however. 

Before Billie could say anything else—clearly, she was going to—Daud brushed past her and, as much as he didn’t want to, went back to Corvo’s cabin to gather his things and, finally, get dressed.

Or maybe fall on the cot in his own room and pass out, whichever happened first.

He didn’t spend a second longer in Corvo’s cabin than was strictly necessary and changed location to his own, all the while being perfectly aware of the fact that Billie (if she hadn’t already, which he doubted) now saw where exactly he went and probably found that positively suspicious. He resolved that he now simply had to deal with that fact, not to mention all the explanations that she would no doubt demand of him, and pulled on his boots and a shirt.

He would get a headache right about now, if his head wasn’t splitting in half already.

His next destination was the galley, as the thirst was still very pressing. The first thing he saw as he stepped into the briefing room was Corvo, on the couch that Sokolov occupied so often, lying on his back, clad only in pants and a shirt. The couch was too small to fit a grown man fully, so one of his legs was bent in the knee and another was hanging off the side, his bare foot on the floor. His arm was slung over his face and on his forehead, Daud could somewhat see, was what he assumed to be a cold wet rag.

By the looks of it, Corvo wasn’t feeling all that well either and, as it appeared, was currently sleeping. 

Good. Daud didn’t feel nearly prepared enough to deal with any of this. 

He turned a corner into the galley and once again ran into Billie, who was already pouring a cup of water and soon held it out to him. Daud took it with an appreciative nod and a muttered _thanks_ and began to sip slowly, as to not risk the nausea’s return.

“Corvo bolted out of his room like a scalded cat this morning,” Billie said, with her arms folded casually, and raised her eyebrow into an amused tilt when Daud choked on his water. She watched him cough for a couple of moments and scoffed. “Yeah. Exactly. And now, here you are, coming out of the same door. Mind explaining any of this at all?”

Daud barely even paid attention to her words while he simply tried to bear with the fact that, apparently, he and Corvo did indeed spend the night in the same room. Somehow. For some reason.

“Really, I never thought you climbed into people’s beds on a whim, Daud,” Billie continued, her tone obviously taunting. He shot her a death glare and she pointedly ignored it as her expression gradually morphed into something akin to an incredulous half-grin. “Just what in fuck’s name were you two doing?”

Daud ignored (or at least tried to, very hard) any and all implications brought on by her tone alone. His own voice was hard and dry, signifying that he did not want to discuss any of this. At all. “Don’t know and don’t remember. Forget it.”

Billie shook her head in a _oh no, that’s not happening_ manner as her eyebrows crawled even higher up her forehead. “You don’t remember? That’s a real pity.”

Daud would argue the contrary. “Listen, I was drunk.”

Billie gave a generous scoff. The fact that she was so obviously enjoying this made Daud hate the situation even more, if it was possible. “Oh, no kidding. You guys drank the whole fucking bottle and even were nice enough to leave it on the table.”

Oh, Void.

“No, seriously, you really don’t remember what happened?” She sounded disappointed. Daud only glared at her. Even if he did remember, what made her think that he’d tell her, he didn’t know.

“I don’t. Why didn’t you ask Corvo if you’re so curious?” He wasn’t sure that was a very good idea, he realized after saying.

“I did! He didn’t tell me anything, he just looked horrified.”

Fuck, that was not a good sign.

“Fine,” she prodded, “what _do_ you remember?” 

“Nothing, I already said,” Daud grated, the headache taking its toll and speeding up his irritability. That was a lie. He remembered fairly well how they talked long into the night, how Corvo showed—if he could call it that—him the heart from the Void. Jessamine’s heart. He remembered what Corvo said afterwards, and then a few more increasingly drunken conversations, until he reached a hole in his memory.

Billie clicked her tongue, her gaze mildly suspecting, and Daud realized he was avoiding her eye and finding an excuse to focus on drinking the water. 

“Well,” she shrugged, “fine. How do you feel?”

Daud almost scoffed at just how unnecessary the question was. “Like shit.”

“Yeah, you don’t say.” She let out a lighthearted sigh and shook her head. “I’ll make you some fennel tea.”

*

Corvo slipped back into consciousness feeling slightly better. Just slightly.

The rag on his face has long since dried up but it helped when it was wet, somewhat—its cold weight on his eyes was wonderfully soothing and helped him to go to sleep. The headache has somewhat lessened and his body still ached, but he could mostly ignore it as he lay unmoving. Frankly, moving and even getting up was last on his list of current priorities. 

He did, however, shift his arm that lay on his forehead so he could see roughly what time it was—thankfully, the light that spilled in through the hatch wasn’t direct sunlight but just light of an overcast day, so his eyes didn't hurt much. He blinked several times and raised his head, just slightly— and immediately dropped it back down and covered his face with his arm once again when he saw that at the table sat Daud and Billie.

Shit.

It was incredibly unfortunate, he thought, that a few recent hours of sleep did nothing to rid him of his latest problems.

From that brief glance he gathered that Billie was reading a newspaper and Daud was sitting with his back turned to him—he was slumped over and seemingly sleeping at the table, so that was one good thing. The more this issue was put off, the better. Maybe Corvo could slip out inconspicuously and— 

And do what? Go where?

Void, he wanted to go back to sleep just to avoid thinking about all of this. 

The problem with drinking was that, the morning after, he always remembered every single little thing. 

To put it briefly, when he woke up this morning he wanted to literally sink through the floor.

Because, for the brief moment before the hangover kicked in and he was still in a sleepy daze, he felt delightfully content. 

Because, as he gradually regained his muddled awareness, the cozy warmth dispersed when he realized that something was wrong.

Because, as his mind cleared and began convulsing with a pounding headache, he opened his eyes to find that he was snuggled—there was no other word for it, really, as much as he hated to admit—against Daud.

The man had still been asleep, thankfully, which gave Corvo a good minute to rein in his horror and shock, and when he realized that he was _still_ in this same position, to carefully untangle himself from the mess of their limbs and roll out of bed as quickly and quietly as he was able.

Not a single coherent, panicless thought had filled his pained and inflamed mind in the half a minute that he spent to grab his shirt from the floor and dart out of the room, uncaring about the fact that he left Daud to sleep in his bed. Whatever. The worst has already happened, no point in further fuss.

It was probably the adrenaline that had kept the side effects of half a bottle of whiskey momentarily at bay, because, only after gulping down a few cups of water and waving off Billie’s curiously amused disposition _and_ finally dropping himself onto the uncomfortable couch in the briefing room, was he forced to deal with his body giving him a piece of its mind. 

The wonderful state of ‘feeling like absolute shit’ was made even better and more exciting by memories of last night that came flooding into his head at the first opportunity.

If he could forget all the short conversations that lacked any content and point and that were just getting increasingly nonsensical, not to mention... cordial, with drunkenness, and then the way they dragged each other to his cabin and started taking off each other’s clothes, for fuck’s sake— if he could forget the peacefully satisfying sensation of slinging his arm over Daud’s torso and pressing against his shoulder while the side of Daud’s head was leaned on top of his own, oh, he would do so in a heartbeat. The feeling in his memory was somewhat shocking, it turned from warm and contented to piercing and jolting as he thought back to it with a sober mind and he hated it, he hated its presence in the first place, and— 

He needed a distraction. A big, fat, heavy distraction. 

With a groan in his bones and muscles he slowly sat up, rubbed his face, and felt Billie’s stare fixed on him.

“Good morning again,” she said in a somewhat lowered voice and took a sip from her mug.

Corvo only grunted and nodded in response, then stood up and went into galley, taking care to step quietly as to not risk bringing attention to himself and waking Daud up—though, he supposed, if the man slept just fine to the sound of Billie’s voice, he had nothing to worry about.

And yet, he couldn’t help but pay extra attention to trying to barely make a sound, almost on instinct, as he pulled out a mug from the cupboard, drank some water, and then fled— no, slipped out of the briefing room and into the hallway. He wasn’t hungry, and even if he were, he felt as if his stomach wouldn’t be able to handle any food for a good several hours. Passing by his cabin, he didn’t bother to turn into it and fetch his boots, thinking that he preferred the pleasant coolness of the floor under his bare feet as he unhurriedly made his way down the hallway and up the several flights of stairs.

The breeze on his face was pure bliss.

He simply stood on the deck for a while, enjoying the salt in the air and the fresh wind that lessened the weight of his headache almost immediately. He rolled his neck with a light grimace at the way the motion echoed with a pang in his temples, then raked his hands through his hair, massaging his scalp and feeling the tension leave his body bit by tiny bit.

After a couple of minutes he spotted Sokolov on the other end of the ship, and made his way there, slowly, careful to avoid the rough areas on the deck floor lest he catch a handful of splinters. Oh well—he supposed that boots wouldn’t have been such a bad idea, after all.

“Corvo,” Sokolov acknowledged him when he reached the table where the man was sitting in one of the large wicker chairs. He was sketching. “Rough night?”

Corvo sat down in the other chair and stretched out his legs with a sigh, then wiggled his toes. “Something like that.”

“Well, you deserve some rest, I’d say. You’re working like an ox.”

“I wouldn’t say a hangover is rest.”

“No, but it’s an excuse to take some time off.”

Corvo tilted his head to the side in a sort of nod—he supposed the man had a point.

And yet, “This isn’t the kind of situation that allows for ‘time off’, you have to agree.”

Yeah? If that was what he thought, then why did he drink so much in the first place?

Well, he knew the answer, but wasn’t at all in the mood to address it.

“A couple of days, give or take, won’t make much difference,” Sokolov said. “Since Delilah encased Emily in stone instead of killing her on the spot, it means she still needs her, right? Your daughter is fine.” Corvo opened his mouth to object but didn’t get a chance to, “You would have felt it if she wasn’t.”

Deep down, Corvo knew that to be the truth. Besides, yes, they were on the seemingly last stretch, but he was tired. The worst thing he could do was burst into the Duke’s palace, exhausted and headstrong, and make some fatal mistake. So he leaned back, let himself go limp and sink further into the seat, and let his eyelids fall closed. 

It was a good day. Not hot, not too cold, no excessive, irritating Serkonan sun. The playful wind ruffled his hair and the sensation made him smile.

These past several minutes made him feel so much better. Fresh air did wonders to soothe the mind, and he wished Daud was here to experience it, surely, he also needed it—

Daud.

The way his thoughts casually barreled back to the man shot a pang of cold down Corvo’s spine.

With his mind sober and somewhat cleared, he came to the conclusion quickly and easily: they wouldn’t speak of what happened. Knowing Daud, he’d be of the exact same opinion. That, at least, was a relief.

Void’s sake, they’ve just had one too many, that was all. It was fine. Shit happened. 

It was all just fine.

Feeling mildly unconvinced but just stubborn enough to make himself ignore his blustering thoughts for the time being, Corvo made himself more comfortable in his chair and tried to doze off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter can be called Okay, Time to Pause the Actual Plot for However Long It Takes These Idiots to Sort Out Their Shit
> 
> ***
> 
> Daud and corvo, dying of hangover and regrets:  
> Billie, sipping tea: now that’s _tea_
> 
> Corvo: we won’t talk about this  
> [laugh track]  
> Narrator voice: they will absolutely talk about this


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter this time. Sorry about the wait, had a bit of a rough time with this one.

“You surprise me, Corvo.”

The voice threaded him down to the bone, leaving no piece of him untouched, and Corvo flinched into waking. Though, he couldn’t say if his sleep was interrupted because he couldn’t tell if he fell asleep at all—still, his eyes flew open and he instinctively gripped the armrests of the chair he sat in. Looking around himself, he saw that the chair and the table were still present from the material world—or at least images, representations of them. The boat itself was also here, only, in place of the sky and the ocean overboard was the familiar, quiet blue expanse of nothing.

He turned his head back to find the Outsider sitting in the chair across from him.

“Do I, now?” Corvo sighed. “What is it this time?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Nothing is obvious where you’re concerned.”

At that, the Outsider held out his pale hand and with the next blink of Corvo’s eyes in that hand lay the Heart. A chill ran down Corvo’s spine at the sight; a pang of something mistrusting, possessively fearful. _Give it back,_ he almost said, but his voice wouldn’t come.

“When I made this,” the god turned the Heart slowly in his hand, this way and that, examining it from different angles like some showpiece in an art exhibit, “I’d not intended for this vision to be… shared with others.”

Corvo’s breath slowed and even came to a still as he watched. He wanted to stand up, to reach out and snatch the Heart from the Outsider’s hands, to save it, _her,_ from the all-consuming power of the Void at the god’s fingertips. But the urge blustered merely in his mind, he felt as if his body was somehow disconnected. He continued to sit in the chair and calmly, at least outwardly, continued watching.

“Vision?” he asked, confused.

“My vision, yes.” Pale fingertips caressed and petted the Heart, brushed imaginary specks of dust off of it. “I can feel your uneasiness, Corvo, even as you try to pretend it’s not there. It grows, more and more the closer you are to your goal, because deep down you know that to save the one you love you will have to let another go.” 

“I don’t understand,” Corvo croaked, having to force his voice out of his suddenly parched throat. But he did, he did understand what the god meant—or at least he thought he did as the pieces in his mind slowly came together to form a semblance of a whole picture. He felt it more with each passing day and if there was one downside to moments of respite, it was that they gave him time to think, and consequently to feel this worry arising and threatening to swallow him whole. The Outsider didn’t look at him—his eyes were only for the Heart, _his_ Heart, his creation, and Corvo felt his own shake and shudder in his breast with the silently thundering realization.

He didn’t want to lose her the second time. He felt he wouldn’t be able to bear it.

“Give it back,” he willed his voice to work when the thought crossed his mind once more, and only then did the empty, consuming black of the eyes of the Void meet his own.

“You have grown attached, Corvo,” the Outsider drawled and flicked his eyes back to the Heart, now twirling it in his hand like it was some toy, some doodad, and not the second dearest thing in Corvo’s life. 

It was affronting.

“Of course I have.” The words came out as a hiss while Corvo was trying to repress the instinctual worry at seeing the god toying with him like that, pulling at the strings of his nerves, laughing silently with the power to take everything away for no reason at all. “You gave it to me. Fed my desperation when it was at its highest—what was I supposed to do?”

“I never intended for this vision to be shared with others,” the Outsider repeated, going on as if uninterrupted. “I never anticipated that _you_ would want to share it with others. I suppose it makes sense, that the first and only person you’d want to show this to would be another one of my Marked.”

Corvo stilled, his gaze almost predatorily calculating.

 _So that’s what this is about._ The Outsider’s comments and opinions aside, if there was one thing he didn’t regret from last night, it was his letting Daud in on this small secret. Even now he could feel the lasting relief from telling him about the Heart and then even baring his soul over a drink—maybe the whiskey just helped him find the words he wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. It surprised him, as he now looked back, how easy and natural it felt to open up and at this point Corvo couldn’t tell when exactly he began seeing Daud not as a necessary evil, not as a means to an end, but instead, perhaps, as someone to share his burdens with.

Somehow, it now felt easy to admit, that, maybe, they weren’t that different after all.

“Yes. Sensible, but curious,” the Outsider continued. “Not even your own daughter, but Daud. It’s somehow… poetic.”

The reply was immediately formed on the tip of Corvo’s tongue. “Don’t you compare the two. Emily doesn’t need to know about it. She doesn’t need this kind of pain.”

“Are you saying she is better off without her mother?”

“This isn’t her mother. The Heart isn’t a replacement.”

“And yet, you cling to it as if it is.”

Corvo clenched his teeth. The subliminal and the rational always were difficult to keep separate, arguing about it was pointless. 

“What do you want from me?” he asked, as if it ever gave him any answers.

“Me? Nothing,” the Outsider replied and Corvo nearly groaned in frustration. “But there are others who might.” Corvo frowned, nearly opened his mouth to ask to elaborate when the Heart suddenly materialized in his hand, its familiar weight against his palm bringing a spike of relief. The god kept looking at it across the table with a sort of calm, unearthly fondness. “Keep it,” he said, his voice soft and lulling. “For now.”

“For n—”

Corvo didn’t get to clarify the confirmation of what he already knew. The Outsider and the Void with him vanished and Corvo’s eyes stung—from the sudden surge of cold, he told himself—and he clenched them shut. When he felt a knot in his chest he took a minute to bring his breathing under control before opening his eyes to find himself back amidst the water that by then turned still and dark. On the horizon lay only a dying sliver of red as the sun set and the creeping, settling night wrapped the sky in its curtain. 

His hands were empty, he realized then with a momentary panic and then calmed himself with the reassurance that most things in the Void were just images, illusions; that the Heart was tucked away safely in his cabin at this very moment and the Outsider hasn’t even been holding the real thing. Probably.

The day’s warmth has gone down. Corvo shuddered when a chill threaded him down to the bones and took another deep, stabilizing breath before finally standing up from his chair. 

It was getting darker by the second—he had many seconds to work with as he made his way back to boat’s stairs, not bothering to or even thinking of using the transversal for he wasn’t at all in a hurry.

Or maybe he just wanted to feel a little disconnected from the Void. Just for a bit.

The ship was long and he walked so slowly and darkness fell so fast that he almost missed Daud, who stood on the other side with his jacket draped over his shoulders, leaning against the railing, and smoked. Corvo came to a still at a good distance away, then shrugged off the remainders of the reflexive tension that soon seemed irrelevant in the face of his recent conversation in the Void.

He didn’t allow himself to think and just followed his gut feeling that told him to approach, then leaned on the railing next to the man and fixed his eyes on the black water. Daud shot him a sidelong look—with more palpable strain and uncertainty that such a fleeting glance should have had room for—and took a slow, red-hot inhale on his cigar. The wind was occasional and mild, and Corvo found himself greedily breathing in the aromatic smoke that stood in the air for a time before dispersing.

He flexed his toes, rolled through his feet on the by now cold floor of the deck. The chill in the air was somewhat balanced out by the warmth radiating from Daud that he could feel from standing so close. It felt nice, somehow grounding in its simplicity, and as soon as thoughts of the Heart and the Outsider seeped into his mind again and threatened to invade and shatter this moment of mental respite, he turned to Daud and motioned at his cigar with an accompanying half-questioning hum in the back of his throat.

Daud looked at him, light confusion creasing his brow, then dropped his eyes to Corvo’s held-out hand.

“I thought you said you don’t smoke,” he muttered.

Corvo only huffed and, taking the words as invitation, took the cigar out of Daud’s hand and brought it to his lips. 

“I don’t. Not usually,” he said after all, then took a drag, slow and careful, shutting his eyes at the way the warm smoke filled his mouth and settled on his tongue with a nonexistent and yet perceptible weight. The multitude of flavor notes was somewhat overwhelming, the taste difficult to pin down in its vague mix of something like coffee and freshly cut wood. He left his eyes closed as he breathed out, feeling a shiver running through him—from the tobacco, or the cold, or the kicking-in relaxation, or maybe everything at once.

“You—”

“Don’t speak.” Corvo’s voice was little more than a whisper and he stood, closed eyes and deep slow breaths full of the night air, each one working more and more to clear his head. He took another inhale on the cigar then, this one stronger and maybe a little feverish, but the exhale came in a long string of uninterrupted breath that untied the knots of tension in his body one by one. He must have handed the cigar back, or maybe Daud just took it out of his hand and took a drag of his own— Corvo just listened to the sound of the man’s breath, breath that was right here and real and not just yet another thing that was about to slip through his fingers. 

“You alright?” Daud asked nonetheless after a minute or two, and despite his request for silence Corvo welcomed its breaking more than he expected. 

“I don’t know,” he replied, partly for lack of energy for pretenses, partly to keep Daud talking, keep him tying Corvo to reality tighter with every spoken-aloud word.

“What is it?” Daud pressed on after a pause, in his voice the slightest amount of strain that probably wouldn’t have been noticeable under different circumstances. 

“Just…” Corvo shrugged, his gaze absent on the disturbed water that hugged the body of the ship. “Everything.”

Daud breathed out a bittersweet chuckle and Corvo was surprised to hear so much expressiveness in the sound. Or maybe it was wishful thinking.

When he realized that Daud held his cigar out to him, he readily plucked it up and, on his next exhale, threw his head back and watched the smoke curl and dissolve into the dark.

“Outsider’s being a dick,” he finally said, not finding any other words that would spare him from delving into this disquieting mess.

A huff. “Isn’t he always.”

“Well— Depending on the point of view, maybe.”

He handed the cigar back and they stood in silence for a while. With the occasional wind that the ocean so generously brought, Corvo found himself shivering lightly, though the chilliness didn’t bother him much.

Just as he felt himself shivering, he also felt Daud side-eyeing him.

“It’s cold,” he said. “Go inside.”

Corvo hummed out a no.

A light scoff. “Suit yourself.”

As Daud gently rolled the cigar on the edge of the railing, letting the ash head break off and fall into the water, he glanced down and his eyes caught on something that summoned a curt huff in the back of his throat.

“Corvo, where the fuck are your shoes?”

Corvo gave a snort of surprise at the tired, amused sort of disapproval in his voice and flitted his own eyes down to his feet, which he hadn’t even noticed he’s been shifting occasionally on the spot to keep them more or less warm on the chilled planks. 

“Ah,” he said. “Somewhere.”

Daud gave a dry scoff of his own in return—at this rate, Corvo thought, they didn’t even need words to communicate, since the rich arsenal of various eye rolls and grunts did the job just fine—and raised an eyebrow. “Right, of course, because catching a cold is exactly what you need right now.”

“Pft, please. I’ll have you know, there’re very few things that can get me sick. I’ve always been healthy as an ox.”

“Stubborn as one, more like.”

“Okay, you know what—”

Daud shook his head with a snort, which then flowed into another one, and in a moment he was quietly chuckling to himself. The laugh was contagious and Corvo allowed himself to break into a grin, with a string of his own chuckles following. He felt as if, with each one, a small chunk of the weight on his chest broke off and evaporated. He was immeasurably thankful that it didn’t grow back in the following minute or so of quiet calm.

“So, uh, about this morning—” Daud broke the silence, somewhat uncertainly but with the subject abrupt enough to make Corvo choke on air and break into a coughing fit. The way Daud outright burst into low laughter in response to his reaction didn’t at all help.

Corvo reined in the subtle shock and finished his coughing.

“What in the ever-loving _fuck_ is so funny—” he got cut off by another burst of laugher from Daud which summoned one of his own and he rubbed his face with his hands, leaving them there while he shook with a cackling fit.

This was all so ridiculous. 

“Just—” Corvo rubbed his brow, letting out shaky breaths as he winded down. Void, so much for not talking about this. “Just forget about it.”

“That’s fine, I barely even remember it.”

“Oh! Good.”

“I can only assume I was physically unable to make it to my room, so. Apologies.”

“Yeah, uh— It’s fine, really. Don’t even ask.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. Okay.”

Corvo drummed his fingers on the railing and, when he felt another urge to reach for the cigar and take a drag for distraction’s sake, swore inwardly at the suddenly dawning inappropriateness of the gesture in the face of the circumstances. The fact that he’s been casually doing it for some time now, and Daud’s been casually letting him, didn’t make it any better. 

He waited a few minutes before leaving so as to not look like he was fleeing the scene. Daud was almost done with his cigar, anyway—it was a perfectly reasonable time to retire. 

“Well, this has been… a day,” Corvo patted the railing a few times in a short pattern and pushed off of it. “Uh. I’ll see you around.”

Daud snorted. “Yeah, I bet you will.”

Corvo breathed out a light hiss—why couldn’t this man ever just let anything slide?—then nodded and headed to the stairs and down into the hull. He had to admit, his feet were very glad for the temperature change.

*

Just for peace of mind’s sake, Corvo checked that the Heart was in its place. He brushed its side with his fingertips and felt a small smile stretching his lips when it gave a responsive beat against his skin.

 _You’re here,_ he thought, just to solidify the notion. The reply was a pulse of light in the contraption’s round glass window, small and soft but enough to fill him with momentary assurance.

It wasn’t late, just a bit more than an hour after sunset, but he got ready for bed nonetheless. After all the… recent adventures, his body demanded it. The fact that he hasn’t eaten anything today merely passed as a fleeting thought in his mind, and, not feeling any hunger, he was glad that that was at least one thing he didn’t have to worry about.

It took nearly an hour of trying and failing to find a comfortable position on the cot for him to give up on the task. Having haphazardly wrapped himself in the blanket and now staring at the cabin wall right in front of his face, Corvo was not very pleased to admit to himself that, despite its size, the bed felt too big and too empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 bros chillin n sharin a cigar 0 ft apart cuz theyre pretty gay


	21. Chapter 21

Searching his feelings, Corvo wasn’t very surprised to once again meet face to face with the figure of Jessamine’s essence on the night they were to head to the Palace District.

_“Can you feel it?”_

His breath hitched in his throat at how the voice felt a little clearer than normal, and he turned his head to find the Heart pulsing gently on the desk as spectral particles slowly formed her image. He sat up on his cot, slowly, as if to not spook her, and with his silence invited her to continue.

_“This is my last night.”_

She looked so lifelike, despite the transparency—so melancholic. But at the same time, determined, somehow.

Corvo knew that look by heart, it was etched into his mind just like all of her other expressions. 

“I can,” he replied, voice quiet and hoarse. “I do, feel it.” He was glad he felt it—he was glad he was given a chance to prepare himself, as much as it hurt.

_“Soon I’ll dissolve into the great nothing.”_

His own heart gave a traitorous pang at the words. _Do you have to? _he didn’t say, as though afraid that she might hear the self-pity in his voice, even though he knew full well that the Heart could feel his every thought.__

“You want to leave?” he asked instead, genuinely in need of an answer. Of course, he didn’t suppose that being trapped between this world and the Void was anything other than a burden, so the question seemed unnecessary, somehow selfish.

The spectral form hovered closer to him, reached out to ghost over his cheekbone with the tips of her fingers and he felt a gentle, soothing coolness at the contact. She smiled then, small and restrained and, in a way, sorrowful. Still, the smile was so genuine, it reached and gleamed in the translucency of her liquid eyes. She was so much more expressive than the last time he saw her like this.

_“I’m afraid I do,”_ Jessamine said. _“I’ve stayed too long.”_

The Void was a cold place, but surely it was better than a cage. Corvo leaned in to her incorporeal touch, closing his eyes, and his brow furrowed with the tendrils of guilt that wrapped around his mind at his selfish need in keeping her tied to him like that, guilt at this selfishness that he felt even still, that’s been undeniably branded into his heart for years. 

“You deserve peace, my love,” he said, lifting his eyelids that suddenly grew so heavy, because it was the right thing to say and to feel, because he wanted her to be happy, even—especially—in death. He wanted to let her go, to give her the peace she deserved for fifteen whole years—but all the same he wanted to stay in this moment forever, feel her ghostly touch on his skin, feel her presence with him, always. It tore him apart, and it hurt. 

Jessamine drew her spectral hand back, the coolness on his cheek lingered and then dissolved in mere seconds and, when a knot coiled in his chest, Corvo closed his eyes once again, just for a moment. 

_“Find Delilah’s spirit,”_ she instructed, and Corvo was unexpectedly thankful for this reminder of what mattered most. _“Trap her with this cage of dead flesh. Set me free.”_

Corvo nodded, small and strained as it was. “I will.” 

_“Thank you.”_ The corners of her lips shifted into a smile she’d reserved only for him and her daughter, this calm, melancholic gentleness full of the purest love he’s ever known and Corvo thought that the Heart has never seemed as real as it did now. 

When she left, he was left feeling empty, and he wondered just how much worse he'd feel when she left him forever. 

* 

“We’ll probably be better off if we split up,” Billie said in the skiff as she tinkered with her spyglass. Sokolov was at the helm, since all three of them were heading out—Corvo could clearly sense Billie’s mellow excitement at jumping into action. “The Duke has a look-alike body double at the Palace, meant to confuse assassins. A friend of mine washes the linens there.” 

“And… that friend of yours can help identify him?” Corvo asked. 

“No, I doubt we can find her easily. But, she says that the double is a smoker, and, apparently, a nice guy.” 

“Is he? Maybe you can talk to him, then,” Sokolov said. 

Daud raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that gonna achieve?”

“A strange way to go, but he could be of help in getting rid of the Duke without having to take him out,” Corvo thought aloud, rubbing his jaw. “At this point, all the options we come across should be taken into consideration.”

Frankly, he had no idea what they were going to do. What they _could_ do, really. Simply bursting into the Duke’s chambers, slitting his throat, and then disappearing into the night wouldn’t cut it, not in the least—Karnaca had to be left in someone’s hands, hopefully better hands, and to say they didn’t come prepared with a well thought out plan would have been a tad of an understatement. 

Not that the scale, timeframe, and overall unexpectedness of the coup allowed for any room for preparation, in the first place. If cutting off support from the Duke hadn’t been crucial to toppling Delilah’s plans, Corvo could have considered waiting and finding a suitable replacement before overthrowing Abele. They had no such luxury, however, and the notion of only having one night of yet another Palace gala to work with in order to change the state of affairs in Serkonos’ capital was, in a way, unsettling. 

The entire premise of this coup never promised any solutions that were both quick _and_ effective, so, for now, they had to work with whatever they had. Well—it wouldn’t be their first time improvising. 

“What a shitty job, pretending to be a tyrant like Duke Luca Abele,” Billie said, shaking her head. “But maybe that means he’s got valuable intel we could use.” 

Corvo chewed on his cheek and let out a long hiss of a sigh. “Alright, then, let’s tally this up. Find both the Duke and the double. Isolate them. Identify who is who. Find out where the Duke is keeping Delilah’s spirit. Find a way in there, as it’s likely locked up a dozen different ways. Take the spirit. Figure out what the fuck to do with the Duke, etcetera etcetera.” 

“What a Void-damned walk in the park,” Daud deadpanned. 

“Shit.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Just make sure that Luca is properly dealt with,” Sokolov spoke up. “He could always count on the backing of Dunwall’s finances and navy. Maybe without that, he would have developed a healthy respect for the people of Serkonos.” 

“Well, it’s a little too late to rid him of Dunwall’s support,” Billie said. 

“Yes. Although, with the way him and Delilah set themselves up to aid each other, perhaps a good threat of her deposition will help straighten his brains out. Fear of the executioner’s block has been a fine motivator for many a ruler.” 

“But now that Delilah’s got the throne, would she even lift a finger to support Abele?” Corvo said. 

Daud shook his head. “Unlikely. With her position secured, we can safely assume she’s got no care for anyone else and just uses Abele as a resource. She only needs to keep him charmed long enough, while he’s useful to her.” 

“Charmed? She brainwashed him?” 

Daud shrugged. “Seduced or bewitched him, maybe. I’d bet good money on it, it’s happened before.” 

“Oh yes, trust me, she can be quite, um… persuasive. For lack of a better word,” Billie said with a frown, suddenly taking great interest in picking at a callus on one of her fingers. “I wouldn’t count on him turning his back on Delilah. Or being capable of being convinced that she might fall, at all. Knowing him, negotiation should probably be left as the last resort; he won’t cooperate easily.” 

Corvo sighed, drumming his fingers on his knee. “It’s fine,” he said, sounding somewhat unconvincing even to himself. “We’ll see what we can do.” 

When they arrived at the empty Palace District docks, Sokolov said he’d see if he could find a way to discreetly come around to the Duke’s private dock in the Grand Palace itself and pick them up there. The possibility of not having to go through the whole district on the way back was relieving. 

Now, though, was a different story, as going through the streets was the easiest and most straightforward way to the Palace. 

The Grand Guard’s presence wasn’t the worst in terms of numbers, but was still enough to warrant caution. Aside from the guards, some beggars, and a few Howlers here and there, the district was calm with very few civilians outside their homes. Due to the wide-open layout of the streets, however, Corvo, Daud, and Billie were forced to climb in and out of countless windows, weaving their way through buildings much more so than simply traversing the rooftops. 

They tended to spread out naturally, by impulse covering more ground because since they had to snoop around in (abandoned, mostly) residential areas, then why not fill their pockets with useful goods? It was all for the mission, Corvo told himself—all for the greater good. 

A surprisingly fresh peach that he found and was currently munching on fit in that category especially well. 

The room he ended up in was a sculptor’s studio, large and spacious with marble figures of various subjects and sizes set up on tables and stands. The smell of freshly-cut material stood in the air. Corvo carefully walked between the stands, gliding his eyes over the animals and human forms, nude or draped in a classical manner—a student’s work, perhaps, based on the fairly standard subject matter—some mostly finished, others only beginning to take shape as they emerged from their respective blocks of stone. He couldn’t help touching the white forms on some of the unpolished pieces, the smoothened yet raw surfaces coating his fingers with a thin layer of marble dust. On the tabletops were laid out all the differently sized and shaped chisels and mallets—Corvo always found fascinating how such seemingly crude tools could give shape to something so elegant. 

Thinking back to Jessamine’s attempts to ‘culturalize’ him (and, later, young Emily) by dragging him to exhibits (and theater, and the opera), Corvo always felt more partial to sculptures rather than paintings as a form of visual art—it felt more grounded, tangible, and thus somehow more accessible. It felt to him that Delilah's use of her artistic skills was insulting to other artists and even unfair to the materials. 

Finishing his peach and tossing the stone into one of the large garbage cans in the studio, Corvo even rinsed his hand from the juice in the sink and decided it was time to head out. He saw Daud and Billie a few minutes ago, so he had no doubt they were somewhere in the near vicinity, and, sure enough, it didn’t take him long to find the two. 

This particular apartment—the whole building, really—was abandoned, if the several bloodfly nets Corvo could see through the Void were any indication. Even still, there was a couple of guards loitering on the stairs, whom Billie made quick work of, and, having left them to snore on the floor, climbed over the furniture barricade into the infested tenement. 

“Why do you even need to go in there?” Corvo called after her, to which she replied that if the infestation was recent, then there was a good chance of finding something they could use. She disappeared from sight and the two men followed soon after, splitting up to check different rooms. Corvo found an S&J elixir in a cupboard above the sink in the bathroom—the vial was dusty, but, he judged by the smell, the elixir itself was still good, so he pocketed it without hesitation. He was checking the other cupboards, mostly empty but still indicative of someone having lived here not too long ago, when he heard Billie calling Daud’s name from one of the farther rooms. 

When a few following moments gave way to a rising argument, Corvo went to see what the fuss was about. 

“We are _not_ taking that, Billie.” 

“Oh, we are absolutely taking that.” 

Corvo only heard Daud grumbling indiscernible profanities under his breath. “This is fucking ridiculous,” was the man’s next piece of rhetoric as Corvo was entering the room. His eyes fell on Billie who was standing on the desk next to the wall and was—speaking of art—working on cutting out a large painting out of a hanging frame. She was cackling. 

“What’s going on?” Corvo asked and didn’t wait for an answer to move into the room’s center. 

Billie grinned and moved to the side so as to not obstruct the piece from viewing, and— well. Corvo only saw Daud rubbing his eyes in a fed-up manner in his peripheral vision, and he supposed the reaction was appropriate, because the subject of the painting was, also, Daud. 

Just that piece of information took a good several seconds to sink in. 

“What?…” Corvo breathed out and blinked his eyes a couple of times, feeling an incredulous grin of his own forming on his face as he stared at an incredibly lifelike, portrait version of a much younger Daud. On the canvas he was maybe in his early thirties, but the resemblance was unmistakable. “There’s… one thing I never expected to see.” 

_“Daud and the Parabola of Lost Seasons,”_ Billie read the label, dramatic and drawn out, and then slipped back into her string of cackles. “What the fuck does that even mean?” 

“Fucking Void,” Daud breathed out with no energy in his voice whatsoever. 

Corvo just kept staring while his eyebrows crept farther and farther up his forehead. “How will you carry that?” he asked. 

“Eh, it’ll fit under my coat when rolled up.” Billie gave a couple of rough downward jerks of her knife and sounds of tearing linen followed. “Look, if you don’t want to spill the beans about this gem, I’m sure Anton will be delighted to do so himself. You know how much he loves to spin stories about his past,” she said, and Corvo couldn’t help a chuckle tearing out of his throat. 

“Yeah, Daud,” he turned his head to regard him, “why so secretive?” 

“Oh no, not you too.” 

“Thank you, Corvo, for backing me up,” Billie shot back and kneeled down on the desk to cut the bottom side of the canvas as the top right corner came loose and curled in on itself. “No, really, Daud, I knew you and Anton knew each other in the past, but damn, I never thought you were this close.” 

Daud followed with another one of his gruff, enervated sighs. “We weren’t.” 

“I beg to differ! Just the—” Billie paused to let out another small fit of snorting laugher, “just the thought that— Was this at the Academy? I cannot, for the life of me, picture you letting someone paint a portrait of you. Either he had to tie you down, or—” 

“No, no, look at it,” Corvo interrupted. He tilted his bead, carefully taking in the face in the painting. Really, it was masterfully done. Sokolov really was a genius, even all those years ago. “He looks amiable enough, the expression is quite relaxed.” 

“You’re right, you’re right, it must have been done willingly. Which only reinforces my point, Daud—you never tell me anything! What’s the story here?” 

“At this point I can just tell you that he painted it from memory,” the man replied, “but of course you won’t believe that.” 

“Nope. Anton never painted from memory, at least back then. He told me himself.” 

“Maybe he lied.” 

“Oh, shush.” 

“That’s one mystery alright,” Corvo said, “but what is this thing doing _here?_ Is it a print?” 

“No,” Billie assured, “it’s the original. And these babies aren’t cheap, either, so someone must have just… really adored Daud.” 

“Wow.” 

“…Before being eaten by bloodflies, of course. Though I haven’t seen any corpses around here, maybe they managed to move when the infestation began. I’m sure they miss the painting. Daud, aren’t you flattered that someone framed and hung your face right across from their bed—?” 

“You can stop right there.” 

“Oh, I’m just glad you’re even letting me cut this thing out.” 

“I’m just waiting for it to be out of the frame already so I can burn it.” 

“No!” 

“Come on,” Corvo picked up with a chuckle, “let the work be reunited with its creator, at least. How many years has it been, thirty? Anton will be delighted. And, yes, I want to hear this story.” 

Daud sighed and shook his head in annoyance. “Of course you fucking do. Is there anything in the world you don’t want?” 

Corvo only grinned. 

* 

Corvo knew not what to do with the pair of runes right in front of him, laid out neatly on the rickety tabletop like an offering. 

The rune song rang loudly and as much as he wanted to reach out and take these carved slabs of whalebone, as much as he was drawn to soothe their buzzing in his mind, he dreaded another meeting with the Outsider. 

When he heard careful but weighty footsteps behind him—Daud’s, he could easily discern by this point—he tightened his jaw and tried to will himself to take the damned runes, but the will wouldn’t come. 

“Thought I’d find you here,” Daud said quietly. 

Corvo sighed, loathing his momentary indecision, and turned his head slightly in acknowledgement. He found he was glad for the distraction— for the company. 

“You heard the runes?” he asked. 

“Yeah, figured it was a shrine.” 

“Where’s Billie?” 

Daud shrugged. “Somewhere around, nearby.” 

“She doesn’t hear runes?” 

“No, I don’t think she does. Her arm works differently, somehow.” 

“Huh.” 

They fell silent, and while Corvo stood and chewed on his cheek, his gaze fixed absently on the shrine, Daud leaned against the brick wall. 

“You gonna talk to him?” 

Corvo tightened his lips. “I should.” 

A pause, and then he heard Daud letting out a soft sigh. 

“You don’t have to,” he said. 

The words felt strange in their unexpectedness. Corvo frowned. 

_Didn’t he?_

“Don’t I?” Corvo said, not knowing when his voice became a whisper. 

The following silence felt pressing and Daud’s breaking of it brought with it some subconscious relief. 

“The other day,” his voice was softer, almost concerned when he spoke. “What did he tell you?” 

Corvo kept staring at the runes, looking but not seeing. “He’s going to take her away,” he whispered absently, and only after a moment realized he wasn’t being clear. The moment’s silence, however, told him that Daud understood. 

“When?” 

The word was difficult to push out. “Tonight.” 

Corvo licked his dry lips and, suddenly needing air, lifted his mask and rubbed his face. 

“He should never have given the Heart to me,” he said, sucking in a greedy breath. “He should never have given it to me, only to take it away. He should never have trapped Jessamine in it. She needs peace. She deserves it. She always has.” 

A long pause, heavy with understandings and implications. “Then maybe it’s for the better.” 

Corvo forced himself to nod. 

“It is,” he croaked with physical effort. “It is. Better. She told me herself.” 

Void, this was hard. His mind was tied up in knots, he was so confused. 

“Letting go isn’t easy, Corvo.” Daud’s voice was so soothing in its rumbling quality, always appropriate, never out of place. Corvo marveled more and more at how grounding it sometimes was, how he felt like he’d have drowned in the Void’s mind-warping pools by now without it to hold on to. “It never is. You’re doing alright.” 

And he was right, Corvo thought. It wasn’t supposed to be easy. None of this was. There was no easy road to take and it was stupid to try to look for one. 

The notion granted him determination to reach out and brush the runes’ surface with his fingertips, and he only managed to nod in response before the Void sucked him in. 

“You’re back at the heart of your homeland,” the god greeted him in his domain, lounging on a slab of Void stone like he’s been waiting for Corvo for an eternity. Who knew, maybe he has been. “A bigger, better palace than the one you sailed away from so long ago. Feeling nostalgic?” 

This kind of nostalgia Corvo wasn’t comfortable with. 

“Not really,” he said. 

“Not really,” the Outsider echoed, rolling the answer on his tongue. “Will you ever be comfortable in Dunwall again, assuming you make it back?” He disappeared and rematerialized in a different place, and Corvo lazily turned around to face him, annoyed at how the god’s been throwing him about just like this for years. “You’ve seen the suffering here, the decay. But, dear Corvo, would you even have lifted a finger if the Duke hadn’t put Emily in harm’s way? Be honest now.” 

Corvo didn’t reply, only tightened his jaw to keep shielded the answer that was clear to him as day, that, no, he wouldn’t have. Yes, they— _he_ has made mistakes he and Emily both would do their best in correcting, but he would not be made to feel guilty about the fact that he loved and cared about his daughter more than anything. 

“In any case, I know what you’re after,” the Outsider continued and Corvo felt the chill at his spine, the dryness in his throat, even before the words were said. “The Heart you carry can only hold one spirit at a time.” 

It was so obvious, and yet the brutal truth of it hurt all the same. 

“So if you want to walk out with a piece of Delilah, you’d better be ready to leave something behind.” 

Corvo didn’t want this reminder. But, at least, the god finally told him what he needed to hear. No cryptic wording, no riddles—just straight to the point, loud and clear. At last. 

“Did you know,” Corvo began, not really knowing why he was asking but wanting to hear it, “did you know that any of this would happen?” 

“What do you think?” 

“I think that I’d like you to stop dancing around with me.” 

The Outsider met his gaze with a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “No, Corvo, of course I did not. I have told you before already, Delilah has found a way to elude me.” 

“Sounds to me like an awfully convenient excuse.” 

“I can’t see the future. I merely observe.” 

“And how do I know that’s the truth?” 

“Have I ever lied to you, Corvo?” 

It was frustrating. It was so frustrating to try and naturally fail to be angry with someone who barely even deserved it. 

“No,” Corvo said, caving in. “No, you have not.” 

The Outsider looked at him for a moment longer and slowly tilted his head to the side. “But I realize why you’re asking, of course. Yes, I knew you’d be holding on to the Heart only temporarily, but, tell me, wasn’t that obvious to you from the very beginning? It surprises me that it wasn’t, at least on a conscious level. The very notion of a soul trapped in a clump of flesh never repulsed you, never struck you with its unfairness beyond surface-level acknowledgment. You never felt guilty of carrying her with you, did you? Not until now, anyway, when she herself had to tell you that she wanted to be free. 

“A piece of advice for you, to go forward with. Those that you hold on to—be careful to not hold them too tight.” 

It all was, frankly, painful to hear. Corvo let loose a sigh of relief when the Void pushed him back out into the present and he blinked rapidly to adjust to the low light, then rubbed his eyes, pressing onto his sockets harder than necessary until he saw spots on the back of his eyelids. 

“How was it?” Daud gave voice from somewhere behind and Corvo flinched, just slightly, before turning around to face him. The Heart beat twice against his chest, almost as if in encouragement or consolation. 

“I’ll—” his lips went dry again but at least his voice worked fine. “I’ll have to trap Delilah’s spirit in the Heart. There’s only room for one.” 

Daud’s brow creased but his eyes softened, and Corvo suddenly thought just how much harder all this would have been if he hadn’t opened up about the Heart, if he had to keep it all to himself and suffer in silence. Daud, it looked like, didn’t mind listening, and that notion alone mattered more than Corvo could explain. 

He didn’t suppose it was easy for Daud to listen to these things, either—a reminder of the greatest mistake of his life, of the cause that brought them together in the first place, of the fact that both their lives would have turned out so differently if not for the death of the woman who at this very moment tried to soothe Corvo, for what felt like one of the last times, with her words and ghostly presence. 

_“He… cares,”_ Jessamine whispered, quiet and almost uncertain, as if telling a secret about which she wasn’t sure how she felt. _“In his own way. And that’s important to you.”_

_It is,_ Corvo replied after a moment, and the Heart beat once more. _I don’t know how, but it is._

He took a deep steadying breath and met Daud’s eyes straight on. “We’ll set her free,” he said, tightening his lips in forced determination. “It’s about time.” 

Daud returned his stare, held it, and nodded. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :>


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this got long as fuck. I didn't want to split it into two, consider this compensation for all the shorter than normal previous chapters:D
> 
> I promise it's worth it

As soon as they stepped onto the Grand Palace Station, the Heart spoke.

_“Delilah. Her soul is familiar to me.”_

Corvo didn’t know what to reply to that, just felt all the questions that immediately began forming in the back of his mind— _is this your way of saying you remember her? Remember what she felt like? Or have you met her in the Void, did you know what she was planning?_ —but he swallowed them all, there was no point in asking them, not anymore, not in these last moments. 

He wouldn’t allow anyone, especially not Delilah, to invade his last hours with Jessamine at his side.

He did not reply and the Heart did not speak further, but it beat against his chest in a slow pattern Corvo knew inside and out; it gave off its subtle ghostly warmth and Corvo never could determine whether it was really there or if he just imagined it this entire time. But he felt it now, he felt it still, and it was enough.

*

Corvo didn’t bother bridling at the incredibly excessive, and in that way even insulting, grandeur of the Grand Palace. That was greatly expected—it did nothing but further reinforce the Duke’s vanity.

“There should be a tourist map of this place,” Billie grumbled under her breath. “On second thought, knowing the Duke, that’s not the most inconceivable of ideas.”

Daud snorted. “Ah, yes—new objective. Find a _map.”_

“You think he gives tours? ‘Good evening, good sir, would you mind telling us the fastest route to the Duke’s chambers, our boat leaves in an hour—'”

Corvo swept his eyes over the spacious rooftop platforms carpeted with gravel—was there even a reason for that, aside from finding as many excuses as possible to spend money? If only there was some way to the inside from the roof—

As soon as he thought that, his eyes landed on a short column or chimney, of sorts, in the distance, and a few flicks of the lens adjustment rings on his mask revealed a dark rectangle in the column’s side. It looked like an opening. 

Indeed, the opening proved incredibly convenient because, climbing through it, he ended up in an elevator shaft with a somewhat clear view of a grandiose bedroom beyond, if an enormous circular bed in its center was any indication. On the right side by the wall was a staircase that led to a sort of a second floor platform, though his view was obstructed by a column right in front of it. Faded, elongated shadows moved along the wall by the stairs; the room was so large that Dark Vision’s pulses weren’t enough to reach the people on the other side, so Corvo didn’t waste any time in blinking back up onto the roof.

“No need for maps,” he said, dusting off his hands from the dirt and soot in the shaft. “This may be the room we need.”

“That was fast,” Billie said.

“Mhm. Can you go check it out?”

“How large is it?”

“Pretty large.”

Billie hummed and climbed into the shaft to give her sliver less distance to travel with Foresight. After a minute or so, she came back up. 

“An alarm in the east corner, either the Duke or his double in the office on the second floor, two guards up there with him and two more downstairs.”

Corvo hummed to himself and Daud scratched the side of his jaw. “How’s the layout?”

“Kind of triangular,” she said and began drawing shapes in the air. “Stairs on the right side, the second floor takes up about a fifth of the first floor’s area, then there’s a large chandelier in the middle and a rafter below the ceiling, next to the office. Also, a huge fucking round bed.”

Daud flicked his eyebrows up at the last detail. “Alright. Any sign of who our friend upstairs may be?”

“No, not at first glance.”

“Is it too much to hope,” Corvo said, “that in the Duke’s chambers would be the Duke?”

Billie replied, “That might be exactly what he wants you to think. Let’s just find the second one, wouldn’t want to fuck this up.”

The night was fairly warm so a lot of people were out and about outside, the guests eating, drinking and mingling in the Palace’s numerous courtyards and pavilions. Perhaps that was why it didn’t take long to spot ‘the second one’, at which Corvo felt a pang of disappointment. The Duke or the double sat in a private garden of sorts, an area enclosed by woven fences and a roof made of rafters; he had a group of guards of his own and also had a wolfhound lying at his feet. Billie was sure that this man was the double, she claimed to have seen a tip of a cigar sticking out of his breast pocket, and even though Corvo couldn’t see it himself from this angle, he resolved to take her word for it.

To their convenience, the—hopefully—double expressed his wish to be left alone and the guards walked out and stationed themselves outside, making it easy to simultaneously choke the three of them out while a fourth one wandered around to the back of the garden. That one was also made quick work of, and when all four of them lay in a neat row on the ground in a nook behind the back fence, Daud and Billie transversed back onto the roof and, staying behind the double’s back, Corvo entered the private garden-pavilion.

He stilled, eyeing the large wolfhound at the double’s feet—he couldn’t quite tell if it was sleeping or not. Even if it was, he wasn’t about to take unnecessary risks. He raised his head to make eye contact with Daud up on a rafter, aimed a transversal right behind the chair the double was sitting in on the far side of the pavilion, and held up three, two, one fingers of his right hand. In the next moment his transversal was simultaneous with the speed of a sleep dart that plunged itself in the back of the wolfhound’s neck. A split second before the double could react, Corvo quickly wrapped an arm into a loose hold around his throat and clasped a hand over his mouth. 

“Don’t scream,” he hissed in his ear, calm but loud enough for the man to hear over his own muffled yelps of shock. After a moment of weak reflexive thrashing, the double stilled as much as he was able with fearful tension rippling through his body, and risked a look down at the motionless wolfhound at his feet. A quick look at the unfinished painting on an easel in the pavilion’s corner—a portrait, of sorts, of this very wolfhound against a backdrop of red carpet—told Corvo that the beast was likely a favored pet.

“Your hound’s fine,” he whispered. “It’s just a sleep dart.” Well, he couldn’t speak for the beast’s health as he wasn’t sure whether a dose of poison intended to put to sleep a human would be too much for a wolfhound, but maybe it’d have a stroke of luck. “I just want to talk. The guards are asleep—you’re safe, and if you want to stay that way you’ll stay calm and won’t call for help. Nod if you understand me.”

The man nodded and Corvo released his hold—slowly, no jerky movements—and the other scrambled up to his feet, turned around and stumbled back over the (hopefully) sleeping wolfhound to put some distance between them. 

“How dare you,” he hissed, his voice shaky but indignant, his face going red with splotches of agitation. “I am the Duke of Serkonos, and I will not tolerate—”

Even with his best attempt at dauntlessness his hands were shaking and, as evident by the way he feverishly clasped them together, he was well aware of that. Corvo could clearly see the cigar tucked in his breast pocket now—it was impressive, he thought, how the man was doing his job even while fearing for his life. 

“No need for theatrics,” Corvo said. “You’re the Duke’s double, aren’t you?” 

“Absurd! I don’t have a—”

_“Aren’t you?”_

The man shut his mouth and took a deep, trembling breath, then released a a long exhale and visibly forced himself to relax. “Alright, alright. You’ve figured it out.” He shot a glance at the wolfhound and then returned his eyes to Corvo’s mask. “Who are you and what do you want?”

Well wasn’t that a very good question. 

“I’m here to take down the Duke.” Corvo paused after that, just to gauge the reaction. The double didn’t seem all that surprised, to a surprise of his own—only appropriately skeptical. 

“I knew this day would have to come sooner or later,” the double said. “Though, I never thought it would happen like this. What do you need me for?”

“I’m looking for a way to depose him without having to cut out his heart. And—” Corvo looked the man over. He really did look like Luca Abele, almost identically so—someone unaware would never guess that this man wasn’t the Duke. An idea struck him then—a stupid, ridiculous, brilliant idea. Without moving his head, Corvo flicked his eyes to Daud and Billie crouched on the rafters above, then slowly raised his arms to the clasps of his mask. “I might need your help.”

The double frowned in confusion, watched Corvo take off his mask, and then his eyes widened.

“The Royal Protector—?”

Corvo slightly inclined his head. “I’m only revealing my identity to you so that you know this is serious. Are you willing to listen to what I have to say?”

The double stammered, visibly trying to put the pieces together in his mind. “Ah— yes, of course, but— how? They say you’re the Crown Killer—”

“Lies, spread by Delilah Copperspoon and Duke Abele. The Crown Killer has already been dealt with and is no longer a threat. Together with some of the other associates of the Empire I’ve been working towards restoring Empress Emily Kaldwin to the throne.”

“This— this is quite the reassuring news. I can’t even imagine— We have heard nothing from the capital since the coup. Duke Abele, in the meantime, only carries on about that Delilah.” He gestured to the table, Corvo nodded, and they both took a seat across from each other. “You should know, Lord Attano, just how many people are left confused and yearning for Empress Kaldwin’s hasty return. I truly hope this endeavor is going well for you.”

“It’s going to go even better after the leadership of the Grand Palace is placed in alignment with the will of the Empire. And for that, as I already said, I may need your help. What can I call you?”

“Armando.” Armando furrowed his brow and clasped his large hands on the table. “If you’re not here to assassinate the Duke, what do you want?”

Corvo shifted his jaw in a moment of self-conviction. When he mulled the thought over enough for it to solidify into a semblance of a working plan, he crossed his legs and folded his hands on his knee. Well—before they even stepped foot in the Palace, they were all ready to improvise. “Armando, I have no doubt that you’d be a more agreeable Duke than Luca Abele. If I wanted to take him down nonlethally, could you convince people that you’re the Duke?”

While Armando was busy with expressing his misgiving by frowning at the table and rubbing his jaw, Corvo snuck a discreet glance upwards, not at all surprised to find incredulous and moderately amused expressions on Daud and Billie’s faces, respectively. 

“That’s bold, and I have to admit, it’s crossed my mind,” Armando said, though the uncertainty in his voice did not quite shield the arising assurance and even notes of curiosity. “If people believed that I was actually Duke Abele and that he was the political decoy, we could have him committed for lunacy.”

He looked at Corvo with a careful squint of his eyes, and Corvo raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Go on,” he prompted.

“We could convince everyone that the double’s finally lost his mind and believes he’s the Duke.” Armando took another moment to think, then tapped his fingers on the table in a short, disorderly pattern. “I’ve spent years perfecting my performance, but there’s a catch. He’s got a medallion that I need. Even if I sound convincing, which should be the easy part, his Grand Guard officers will ask to see the medallion as proof.”

“Does he carry it on him?”

“Yes. Luca never puts it aside. Do you know where his chambers are?”

“I do.”

“Good. If you render him unconscious and bring him to his chambers, I should be able to handle the rest.”

“All right. It shouldn’t take me long.” This time, Corvo didn’t bother to hide his upward glance at his partners, who moved at once and were gone before Armando could notice Corvo eyeing the ceiling and looked up as well, only to find nothing. “Once it’s done, I’ll be leaving the city. Soon after, I’ll send instructions from Dunwall, and I’ll expect a great deal of flexibility and cooperation on your part.” Corvo leaned forward, folded his hands together on the table. “There’s still time to pull Serkonos back from the edge of the cliff. We can undo the damage Duke Abele has inflicted.”

“I’d like that.” Armando nodded, then tapped the table again in a long moment of consideration. “But I’ll guide Serkonos in the ways I see fit, for the people here. Not as the hand-chosen puppet of your empire.”

At that, Corvo frowned, then blinked his eyes a couple times like he didn’t hear the man right. “That’s awfully bold.”

“Those are my terms.”

“You’re an _actor.”_

“An _actor_ who’s been breaking his back poring over the Duke’s paperwork for years, while the Duke drowns himself in orgies and alcohol. I assure you, Lord Attano, I only want what’s best for the people of Serkonos. At this point, I can safely say that I’m involved in matters here much more than Luca could ever be.”

Corvo shifted and tightened his jaw. “I’m not about to leave Karnaca up to fate. I admire your values, Armando, but these transitioning times are quite rocky. I hope we can come to an agreement here.”

“For years I have thought about what I would do if I had the power of the Duke. I went to no official law school, I admit, but it has been my passion for as long as I remember and if working closely together with the greatest example of how a country should not be run isn’t considered valuable first-hand experience, then I don’t know what is.”

“I understand the sentiment. Believe me, I do. But I ask you to listen to a man who in these past couple of weeks has set into motion more events that this stagnating land has seen in a long time, and if the healing isn’t taken into the right hands, it could leave a nasty scar. Currently, there are things happening you may not be aware of, and more changes are to come.”

Armando furrowed his brow in concentration. “That’s a valid consideration. But you must agree, the crown has been quite… inattentive to the matters in Serkonos, as of late. Why should that change now?”

He was right to be cautious. They both were—the fact that they were having this argument in the first place lighted a spark of assurance in Corvo, that maybe this man would truly show a much more thorough and effective approach to ruling. “What I’ve seen here will stay with me when I return to Dunwall Tower. Being in Karnaca again has given me perspective—I will do everything in my power to aid and support the changes here.”

The wariness Corvo sensed in this man gave an impression that he would take heed to the Duke’s council and, as a regular practice, would listen to advisors, and that was promising already.

“So let me rephrase my offer, then,” Corvo continued when Armando gave an approving tilt of his eyebrows. “The Empire will not dictate your actions, however, I still ask for your open ears in this alliance. We both want the same thing, and, you’re right, I’m not the one who’s spent years in the Grand Palace. And, keeping in mind what I just told you, I think we both can use each other’s input.”

“Oh, absolutely. Believe me, Lord Attano, I’m entirely on your side. Whatever… things you have set in motion, as you say, I am eager to learn of them.”

“Good. Which is why I ask for your cooperation, at least for a while in the nearest future. Both Karnaca and Dunwall need time to get back on their feet, and this is a time like no other for tightly-knit collaboration.”

“That I fully agree with.”

“Then I can count on you?”

“Yes, and I on you. I expect the crown to turn its eyes onto Serkonos soon enough.”

“Don’t even doubt it.” Corvo reached out over the table and Armando clasped his hand in a firm handshake. Then Corvo stood up and put his mask back on. “I must go now. I shouldn’t have to tell you that what we’ve just discussed, as well as the fact that we’ve met at all, must not leave this table.”

“Of course, of course, rest assured.”

“Good. Come to the Duke’s chambers in an hour.” That was more than enough time, but it was best to avoid raising suspicion of any kind. Armando nodded and hummed in affirmation, and when Corvo turned to leave, he stopped and turned back around with the sudden reminder. “Oh, and the four guards—” he pointed vaguely in the direction of their resting place, “I’d advise to take care of them, lest they raise an alarm when they wake up.” 

Armando scoffed in incredulity, no doubt trying to wrap his mind around how one man could have put down four trained guards at once, then nodded his agreement and Corvo left, slipped along a path secluded with thick vegetation and more fences and, when he was way out of sight of both Armando and potentially anyone else, blinked up to the roof of the Palace and headed towards the Duke’s chambers.

He didn’t know what he expected, because when he climbed down into the elevator shaft once again and looked through the Void, he was pleasantly surprised to see that the four guards were piled in the office on the second floor, another, much fatter body was laid on the bed in the room’s center, and Daud and Billie were casually sitting on the stairs. He jumped down to the floor of the chambers with much less care than he would have if the room was full of conscious guards, and when he walked in, swept his eyes over the large windows along the walls.

“…Thanks,” he said, taking note of the Duke snoring on the bed and, when he saw no one loitering outside, turned to Daud and Billie. Billie was picking grapes from a cluster, occasionally handing some to Daud. “Did anyone see you?”

“Of course. We rang all the alarms and the whole Palace is about to come running,” Daud said and Corvo rolled his eyes, though it went unseen beneath the mask. “No. Can’t say the same about you, though.”

At that, Corvo took off his mask and clipped it to his belt. “I had to let Armando see who I am. If we’re to work together closely in the future he should at the very least be filled in on what we’re doing here.”

He came closer to stand at the foot of the staircase and Billie tossed him a couple of grapes, which he caught and popped in his mouth with an appreciative hum.

“Right,” Daud said, “that plan of yours? The dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Having caught teasing notes in Daud’s voice, Corvo grinned in spite of himself. “I know. It’s great.”

“Anything’s better than Abele, at this point,” Billie shrugged and bit into another grape.

“True, but I actually have a good feeling about this, for once,” Corvo said. “Armando should prove cooperative. I’m thinking Byrne will be much more easily kept an eye on now, and I’m not even mentioning the mining situation. He should get here in about an hour, and then we can say bye-bye to Abele.” 

“Finally,” Billie grumbled, and reached into her pocket. “Speaking of which,” she pulled something out and tossed that to Corvo as well—a small key. “Apparently, this opens the Duke’s vault. Maybe Delilah’s spirit’s in there.”

Right. 

“Ah— yes, thank you,” Corvo said and pocketed the key. “Yeah, it should be.”

“I hope you have a plan on how to trap it.”

“I do.”

For a moment, Corvo inwardly tensed at the possibility of her asking follow-up questions, but, to his relief, she just nodded and went back to her grapes. Well—she never struck him as especially curious about the Void’s tricks, so he didn’t pay that any mind. 

*

Armando didn’t leave them waiting—he showed up in about an hour and Corvo was pleased to see the wolfhound alive and well and trailing after him, though the man shut the door before it could enter. Daud and Billie didn’t bother to get out of sight; at this point, none of them were worried about this man seeing their faces. He tensed, however, at the sight of them, but quickly relaxed when Corvo assured they were with him.

Corvo gestured to the knocked-out Duke with a flourish. “It’s your turn.”

Armando came to stand over Abele, then looked him over with a curious mixture of aversion and melancholy. “That’s it, then. Now it’s up to me. I’ll take the medallion and call them.” He leaned over to reach into one of the Duke’s pockets and pulled out a small golden piece. 

“We’ll be watching,” Corvo said, donning his mask once again. “Break a leg.”

Armando chuckled and walked over to a public speaker by the windows. “Don’t worry. I’ve spent years mimicking this asshole.” He pressed a button on the microphone. “Captain Almeida, come at once to my chambers. There’s a problem.” 

With the call made, Corvo hurried to climb up onto a high ledge above the staircase and hide behind the lineup of large pots of fern—Daud and Billie were already there; surprisingly, there was enough room to fit them all and keep them out of sight under the ceiling.

“This is bound to be good,” Billie drawled when a female Grand Guard officer and two accompanying lower-ranking men entered the room in a hurry. 

“Your eminence?!” Captain Almeida called. “Are you all right?”

Corvo marveled at how faithful Armando’s reply was to Abele’s mannerisms and way of speaking. “Yes, yes, Captain. Please arrest this—clown.” The Captain turned to look at the Duke on the bed and wasted no time in approaching, grabbing him by the arm, and slapping him awake. “It seems that he took his role a little too seriously.”

The Duke awoke and reflexively thrashed in the Captain’s grip. “What— Get your hands off me!”

“Poor man,” Armando said with such a theatric show of empathy in his voice that Corvo scoffed in the back in his throat, not sure whether that was exactly how Abele would react, or if Armando was simply enjoying himself in his sudden position of power over his oppressive employer. Possibly both. “He served me well for years. We’ll never find anyone else who so bears my resemblance. Take him away, Captain, but be gentle.”

“I think I understand, your eminence,” the Captain replied with poorly hidden disgust in her voice addressed to Abele. “We’ll handle it.”

“What?” Abele cried as he was pulled up from the bed and towards the door. “This is outrageous— I’ll have you all skinned alive and set in a salt bath!”

“If only there was something we could do for him,” Armando shook his head. “I suppose all those years, pretending he was me; that eventually took its toll.”

“No, stop! I am the Duke of Serkonos! You can’t do this!”

The two guards took Abele by both of his arms and led him out of the room. His shouts could still be heard from the outside. “It’s unfortunate, but such things have happened in the past,” Captain Almeida said and Armando—the Duke—gave a couple of somber, empathetic nods. “Doctor Hypatia at Addermire will know what to do with the poor man.”

Oh, Corvo thought, if only they knew. Oh, the irony. He couldn’t help an acrid grin forming on his face.

Who knew, maybe Abele would go mad for real, under these circumstances. 

The Captain left and, having waited a couple of moments to make sure that no one was coming back, the three made their way down to the main floor. 

“Nice show,” Daud raised an eyebrow and Armando gave a small bow. A satisfied smirk played on his lips. 

“Here’s to a job well done,” he said, then released a weighty sigh. “This is incredible. I’ll be trying to get my head around this for a long, long time.”

“Yes, well, don’t let it take too long,” Corvo replied. “We’ve got work to do.”

“Of course, of course. Karnaca will see better times soon, I assure you. I must thank you for putting faith in me, Lord Attano.”

“Well,” Corvo said, “it’s only up to you to make sure that this faith is well placed.”

They said their goodbyes, wished their good-lucks, and with one last promise of swift correspondence between the crown and the newly established Duke of Serkonos, the three left the chambers and returned to the roofs.

“See that dome over there?” Billie pointed and Corvo scoffed. With its sheer size, one couldn’t possibly not see ‘that dome’. “That must be the vault.”

Corvo hummed in agreement, then Billie pulled out her pocket spyglass and looked to the west, to the black ocean reflecting the dark of the night. “Hopefully, Anton made it around. There should be the Duke’s private dock somewhere over there,” she waved vaguely in the direction she just looked, then folded the spyglass and hid it in her coat. “Can you two handle the rest? I’d like to catch Anton, wherever he is, and bring the skiff closer to the dock.”

That would have been helpful, as they never appointed a specific meeting place. The Palace and all its courtyards were built up on the rocks protruding from the water, so Billie should be able to inch her way around the edges of the shore without having to break into swim. They all expressed their agreement and, with a wish of good luck, Billie didn’t waste time in making her way westward across the roofs and soon disappeared from view.

With her gone and one of the major goals of this entire endeavor met, Corvo all of sudden felt the crushing weight of not having much of anything else to distract him from his next objective.

*

They were silent as they traversed the roofs and climbed onto a top balcony of the Palace, positioned practically above the dome of the vault—there was no one on that balcony, the rooms beyond were dark and locked shut, perhaps they were under reconstruction. The night was nearing its middle, so the Duke’s guests at large began mellowing out, going home or passing out from exhaustion or alcohol in the Duke’s guest chambers or right at the garden tables in the courtyards. The guards were instructed to not disturb the guests, it seemed—at least until morning. The people quieted down but the far-off music could still be heard. Corvo wondered if it ever stopped. 

He looked at the dome from above, taking in the sheer scale of it, how it could be seen from all corners of the Palace. It made sense, he supposed, that Abele would make even his secret—not so secret anymore, really—vault into another showpiece. 

When he began counting the tiles that made up the dome’s surface like a mosaic, he realized he was stalling.

Daud was evidently thinking the same thing, judging by the way he was looking at him out of the corner of his eyes. He didn’t say anything, didn’t rush him, and the silence was what made Corvo buck up in a self-convinced, faked spike of determination.

“This is it,” Corvo finally spoke, his voice rough and dry, as if he hasn’t used it in days. He barely registered taking a deep breath before climbing up onto the balcony’s thick stone railing, then quickly flitted his eyes over the ground to try and assess the best way of entry.

He would never be more prepared for this than he already was, so he might as well just—

Get it over with?

That didn’t sound right. That sounded negligent, uncaring, even, and wasn’t at all right—he cared quite a bit, to a point where it was getting difficult to breathe but he made himself remember what he was here for, first and foremost.

Emily needed him. And he needed to do this.

“I’ll be here,” Daud said, quiet and almost tentative. Corvo nodded and swallowed, the motion made painful by the coarseness of his throat, and made his way down to the ground. 

The dome had a sort of a glasshouse built into one of its sides. A clockwork soldier patrolled the area around it, and while Corvo would have been all too glad to dispatch as many of those machines as he was able at any other time, his current mindset only led him to sneak past and slip into the vault’s entrance. It was a small hall with lots of whale oil machinery and security precautions, and, having carefully turned off everything he could physically see and reach, Corvo slid the Duke’s key into the hidden keyhole and, with a turn, the thick metal door groaned and slid open.

He managed to time it so that the clockwork soldier was on the far side of the courtyard, giving him enough time to slip inside and close the vault door behind him before he would have been discovered.

He took a few seconds to take in the room he ended up in—the vault took up the entirety of the dome’s interior space and had two stories, with the second one’s balconies running along the circumference. In the center stood a white leafless tree, stretching all the way to the ceiling. Corvo heard the all too familiar whir of a Jindosh machine before he saw the thing itself; he quickly scanned the surroundings with Dark Vision and saw one clockwork soldier patrolling on the other side. Only one of those wasn’t a problem—he blinked up onto the railing of the second floor’s balcony and loaded a regular bolt into his crossbow, then sent it flying into the ground of the first floor, roughly below his position. The machine spoke in Jindosh’s voice, turned around and clanked its way to the sound of the disturbance, then came close enough for Corvo to jump right on top of it, clamp his feet on its shoulder plates and rip the avian-shaped head plate off its axis with a precise jerk of his sword.

Suffice it to say, he got quite a bit of practice with these things in the clockwork mansion.

The machine informed of the firing up of its amplified audio detection system, flailed around for a bit, and soon died down with a steaming hiss when Corvo lodged his sword deep between the spinal cords and tore the delicate mechanisms inside.

The manifestation of Jindosh’s one-time genius fell to the floor with a slam, and Corvo stepped over it like it was nothing more than a pile of junk.

At the room’s center near the tree, in the area where the clockwork had been patrolling when Corvo walked in, stood the same sculpture of feathers and bone that he saw in the vision of the past in Stilton’s mansion—another effigy, of sorts, that Ashworth made to hold Delilah’s spirit.

At the very least, he knew he was certainly in the right place.

The Heart beat against his chest with an insistence he’s never felt from it before, and he pulled it out of the pocket that has long since become its home. 

“Here?”

_“Yes.”_

The Heart pulsed with a gentle glow in its little glass window, and then the air parted to let a figure made out of particles of the Void step through. Corvo watched, awestruck and speechless, as though he was seeing this spectral form of her for the first time.

Maybe it felt that way because it was the last.

His own heart gave a violent lurch just at that thought alone.

Jessamine turned her head, slowly, unhurried in her reserved manner of bred-in-the-bone regality. She examined the effigy, looked it over from top to bottom and Corvo could barely hold on from losing himself in this illusion—it seemed so impossibly lifelike it was suffocating. 

_“This is it,”_ she said and turned back to Corvo. _“You must release me from this dead vessel.”_

All Corvo could think was, Void, he was going to miss that voice. 

He was going to miss that way that she looked at him.

He had no voice of his own, so he simply nodded.

_“Now our daughter will need you.”_

When he still found nothing to say and nodded again, Jessamine smiled.

_“You have done well, Corvo. Even still—you’re doing well.”_

Corvo nodded, once again, wishing to just listen to her speak forever. He thought back to all the times he took the Heart for granted, the times he didn’t give his all to soak up every little sound of her voice, every little word of her wisdom. It was too late for that now, it would never be enough, he would never have enough of her. 

The thought scared him, and he realized he was terrified. 

“I’ll make it right,” he said despite it all, and heard his voice break. “We. We will make it right.”

He and Emily would have a lot to ponder when he returned.

Jessamine’s gentle smile remained. _“I know you will.”_

It seemed, like, if he didn’t have his daughter to go on for, he would readily lock himself in this vault forever and wither away into nothing by Jessamine’s side.

“Will I see you again?”

_Please tell me I will see you again._

_“Perhaps.”_ Corvo clenched his eyes shut when her ghostly touch met his cheek once again. _“Perhaps, if the Void wills it, it will bring us together someday.”_

Corvo raised his own hand to hover it over hers on his face, feeling the coolness of it, wishing like mad to feel something other than air.

Her hand slipped downwards, and he held it, as best he could with only his eyes as his guide. He could almost imagine how holding her hand once felt.

The words lodged themselves in his throat and he almost surprised himself when he managed to say them after all. “Be at peace, my dear empress.” _Be at peace, so I can be, as well._ He looked down at her translucent hand in his, ghosted his thumb over its fragile shape, her sharp knuckles, her long slender fingers, her velvety skin. “Star of my sky.”

All the stars.

 _“Corvo.”_ He had to force himself to raise his eyes and meet her gaze, had to force himself to face that _this is it._ After all these years, all the pains and the sorrows, this was it. Her smile, her eyes were so real he could drown himself in them and never come back up to the surface, and he wished for nothing more in that moment. _“Corvo, your eyes, your hands, your heart.”_

He had to bite down on his tongue just to keep himself from begging her to stay.

_“With my last thought, I love you.”_

“Jess—”

What a dear, beautiful name. How it sat on his tongue. 

_“Goodbye, Corvo.”_

He never, never wanted to hear those words, but here they were.

“I love you,” he whispered as her form slowly faded away, and the coolness of her weightless hand was the last thing he felt from her. “I always will.”

Jessamine was gone and the dome fell into a long, hollow, dead silence.

Soon, that silence was broken by an unearthly hiss akin to howling of the wind, and then the Heart vibrated and shook in Corvo’s hand as the effigy’s makeshift ribcage opened, and from it a black tendril of shadow shot out towards the organ and pierced it. Or maybe the Heart sucked it in—he couldn’t tell.

Is this what Delilah’s soul looked like? Dark ropes of manifested spite and malice?

That spite and malice practically leaked out of the organ as soon as it spoke. 

_“What is this? The heart of my half-sister?”_ Corvo’s face contorted into a grimace by its own will and in a split second of impulse he was tempted to throw the Heart away, to crush it, to burn it, because whatever lodged itself inside was an impostor, a corruption, a worm that with its mere presence made the entire fruit rotten to its core.

Hearing her voice so close, so inappropriately _intimate,_ was the most disgusting thing Corvo has ever felt. 

If the pure, unbridled spite of her voice would work to fire up his anger enough for him to go on to place her at the tip of his sword sooner, then he supposed that was the one and only bright side to all of this. 

Delilah’s essence scoffed and Corvo could just see its owner’s face. He could just feel how much he wanted to hurt her. _“Only her flesh remains. I wonder if it was even really alive.”_

Not wanting to look at it, to feel its weight in his hand that suddenly felt so unfamiliar for a second longer, he clenched his teeth and hurried to put the Heart back in its pocket. It felt so wrong to keep it there, now, when the Heart felt so… _dead,_ when it filled the entirety of him with hollow dread. But, at least the spirit was trapped, caged—maybe, if he ignored it, it wouldn’t speak.

Maybe he’d be able to keep it out of his sight on the trip back to Dunwall.

Abhorrent. Her mere presence filled him with so much hate he wanted to scream.

_Why did you leave, Jess?_

*

Daud tried not to think.

Thoughts were a jumbled mess, anyway, there wasn’t even any point to them, so he muffled them with the mindless task of smoking one cigarette after another.

Maybe he was turning insensitive to nicotine, or maybe this pack was defective, or maybe he simply needed something much more to numb this horrendous mixture of dread, guilt, and worry. 

No, he wasn’t worried for Corvo’s well-being. The man could take care of himself. 

But if the way how, in the past several days, he withered more and more aside from the rare moments of being distracted from the storm in his own head, was any indication, then letting Jessamine’s soul go would not be an easy thing to shoulder.

And it could have been fine, too, if not for the way Corvo would begin to blank out for minutes at a time day after day and, whenever he’d realize it, to try to forcefully keep himself together and appear fine on the outside, but if there was one thing that Daud’s learned over the years, was that it never worked. 

He still couldn’t wrap his mind around this whole thing. He still couldn’t manage to hammer into his skull the fact that Corvo was now forced to practically tear out a piece of himself with which he’s lived for fifteen years.

When the man himself showed up after a while, already from a distance Daud could clearly see the stiffness of his posture. How rigid his shoulders were set. The grip on his sword tighter than proper. 

Corvo pulled himself up to the balcony, vaulted over the railing, and Daud had no words to greet him with. He only took another tense drag on his cigarette, glad to have something to occupy his hands with, and shot Corvo a sidelong look.

If the man had something to say, if he _wanted_ to say something, then he’d do just that and speak. It wasn’t up to Daud to dictate the course of this moment.

Corvo looked somewhere forward, out at the span of specks of golden light shining through the darkness in the distance, the black water that hugged the isle. He stood, leaning against the railing and barely breathing, or at least Daud didn’t see it well. Minutes passed in silence and he finally reached up to take off his mask, his movements mechanical and stiff as he clipped it to his belt and regained his previous position. Only then did he take a slow, deep breath, sucking in the cool air of the night with the full expansion of his chest.

After another minute, the breaking of silence felt so alien to Daud’s ears it was startling. 

“She’s gone.”

Daud frowned. The words sounded hollow. Numb. 

It didn’t feel right.

And what _was_ right? Who in the bloody Void was he to mandate the reactions of a man whose lover he murdered in front of him?

Daud risked a look at him, actually turned his head to take a good look at Corvo Attano, the man who once again lost near everything that mattered to him. The soft wind ruffling his hair was the only thing that made him seem more or less alive; the grim set of his jaw and a blank forward gaze did nothing but spark worry.

He couldn’t fall apart now. His daughter needed him. 

The whole fucking Empire needed him.

“Corvo.” 

Corvo blinked a few times as he was slowly pulled out of the cage of his mind. He blinked again, rapid and often.

“She’s gone.”

Daud tightened his lips.

Seeing him like this was more painful than he cared to admit. 

“It’s for the best,” he said. Weakly, uselessly.

Corvo still stared blankly ahead.

“Daud?”

He dreaded hearing whatever was to follow.

“Hm?”

“I feel numb.”

 _You can’t,_ was on the tip of Daud’s tongue the moment Corvo said it. _No, you can’t, pull your damn self together._ Easy to say, that was—how Corvo should do that, he had no idea.

This was all so sick. This was all just a huge joke of the Outsider’s sick sense of humor. Daud shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be the one here, Corvo needed help, support, someone to lean on. Someone to pull him out of this—surely, it was temporary. Surely, this was just a state of shock. It had to be.

“It’ll pass,” Daud replied like he had a damn clue. “You’ll be fine.”

A grim, humorless laugh threatened to tear out of his chest as soon as he said that.

None of them were fucking fine and never would be. It was as simple as that.

Corvo took another deep breath—Daud stilled with concentration, afraid to miss anything because these deeper, fuller sighs were something of a sign that Corvo was trying to break out of this trance. 

_Breathe,_ he wanted to tell him, _for fuck’s sake, just breathe._

Maybe Corvo simply needed time and space. Maybe a change of topic would help. It was worth a try.

“Did you get Delilah’s—”

_“Don’t speak her name.”_

Daud shut up immediately at the hissed command, and he shot Corvo another look. His jaw was tightened, his brow furrowed. Anger. That was an emotion. And emotions were a good sign.

Only, as much as he wanted to dig deeper, to pull these feelings back out, he couldn’t will himself to. Corvo wanted this one thing and who was Daud to deny him anything, after everything he’s done?

“Okay,” he said. In any case, judging by the reaction he could assume that the soul was indeed collected and they now could set out for Dunwall. “If it’s done… We should go.”

Corvo stayed where he was and didn’t move a muscle. Daud wasn’t sure if he heard him, but assumed it was an expression of decisiveness on his part. Alright. He’d respect that.

He took one last drag on the cigarette that was nearly burned down to the filter by this point, and, with a slight cough, dropped it down from the balcony. When he did, he heaved a sigh, and then felt Corvo’s eyes fixed on him. 

He looked back and locked stares with him, just for a moment—that moment was enough to glean the specks of feverish desperation in Corvo’s eyes that yearned to tear out to the surface but were muffled by the overall emptiness of his disposition.

“Corvo,” he said once again, to try to pull him further into reality, and something lit in the man’s eyes at that. Just a spark, a small flicker. “Corvo. Listen to me.” _Please._ “You did all you could. The Duke’s gone. Karnaca is left in better hands. There’s nothing standing between Delilah—” he paused, ever so briefly, to gauge the reaction but the name didn’t spark anymore anger, at least on the surface, “and you anymore. You have her soul. You _will_ take her out. You’ve done everything to ensure that.”

A long pause, full of strain and trepidation and at last, Corvo nodded—a small, tense motion, but it was conscious, and it was something.

“I have,” he said—whispered. He sounded so… unsure, almost half-questioning, like he needed another confirmation. Daud would give it over and over again if need be.

“Yes. You have.”

Another tense nod, another couple of hoarse words that managed to break Daud apart all over again. “We have.”

Daud looked at him and Corvo looked back, in earnest now. His gaze felt so heavy, so… meaningful, somehow. Daud couldn’t explain it. He just held eye contact, not sure whether it was because he somehow wanted to or because he was afraid to scare Corvo away and lose him to his prison of thoughts again. 

When, after several seconds—or was it minutes? He really couldn’t tell—Corvo moved closer, Daud didn’t step away.

When Corvo searched his eyes, so deeply and thoroughly like he was desperate to grasp at something, anything at all, Daud let him.

When Corvo kissed him, pressed his dry lips to his for a mere couple of moments that felt like both an eternity and barely a microsecond at the same time, when he drew back with a shaky breath escaping his mouth, Daud had to stop himself from reflexively trying to follow after him.

He didn’t understand what just happened and why his hands went ice cold while his lips felt like they’ve been burned, but he paid all of that no mind as he stared, dumbfounded, at Corvo and tried to make sense of the medley of emotions alongside uncertainty and confusion that danced and danced in the man’s eyes. 

Neither of them said a thing and a visible shudder coursed through Corvo’s body as he turned back to look to the horizon and exhaled a long, trembling breath.

Daud didn’t know what to say, what to do; didn’t even try to begin to untangle the mess of the thoughts in his head that slammed against the walls of his skull in a useless attempt to find a way out. 

He felt painfully aware of every little thing going on, of every insignificant huff of wind, of every distant drunken cry of some noble, of every rise and fall of Corvo’s chest in his peripheral vision as the man breathed, calm at first, then, a few minutes later, just the slightest bit more labored. And then some more. 

Daud didn’t know what he expected, he could have expected a hundred different things, but this wasn’t one of them.

Corvo was crying.

Tears rolled down his face, silently, freely, as if he himself didn’t notice them at all. And he probably didn’t, not for a good couple of moments until he began rapidly blinking, almost in confusion, surprised to feel the moisture on his eyelashes and Daud thought that maybe he was just shocked to suddenly remember what that felt like.

If he was speechless, then Corvo was all the more so, and when the latter seemingly realized that his cheeks were streaked with wet, his eyes widened, his brow creased, his lips tightened as though he tried to hold something in but a lone sob tore out of his chest all the same.

It was so quiet and almost controlled, and even still the sound was enough to shatter Daud’s heart into a million little pieces. 

He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what to say, how to possibly react, how to make this better—and how could he? _He?_ He barely even had any right to be here, and—

“Corvo.”

And yet, the name tore out on its volition and, somehow, it was enough to make Corvo turn his wild eyes to him again, and— Void. He was scared. He was dejected and scared and there was no doubt that Daud’s own confusion reflected in his glassy with tears gaze, and—

He was so visibly hurting, all the unsuccessfully repressed emotions boiling up to the surface at a much faster rate than Corvo could control. He needed help, he needed to let it out, his whole being was crying out for it, and—

“Corvo— Corvo.” The name was little more than a whisper on his lips, a puff of hot breath that somehow felt so grounding as Daud finally willed himself to reach out and gently take Corvo by the shoulder, then by another with his other hand, and pull him towards himself. 

And the gesture was clumsy and uncertain, and Corvo stiffened in his hold for a few moments while both of them processed what was happening, and as soon as he did he shook with a gut-wrenching sob and buried his face against Daud’s shoulder.

A moment later, his hands were latched like vices on the back of Daud’s coat and he responded in kind, just going with his gut as he pulled Corvo closer, wrapped an arm around his upper back and sent his free hand into his hair. Corvo trembled as he wept and Daud barely registered shushing something in his ear, scratching at the soft hair at the bottom of his skull, gently, encouragingly, _yes, good, let it all out._

“You’ll be alright,” he whispered, without thinking, without regard for the fact that he should be the last person to tell him that, that he couldn’t possibly imagine how someone could be alright with so much weight of the whole world crashing down on them. “You’re alright,” he whispered, and Corvo only clutched to him tighter and nothing else mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> hi


	23. Chapter 23

       _Anything dead coming back to life hurts_

  
   

   

Corvo couldn’t remember the last time he cried.

He probably bawled when Jessamine died. He probably bawled for hours on end in his cell in Coldridge with nothing else for his body to spend energy on. But that entire experience was molded together by now into an obscure, general lump of pain that he’d buried somewhere deep down and hadn’t allowed himself to revisit beyond surface-level remembrance. It was better that way. It was better for his growing daughter who’d needed her father to fully be there for her more than anything in those trying times, it was better for his duties of pulling Dunwall up from the literal dead, it was better for everyone and— it was better for him. At least, it had felt that way.

If this was what releasing many years’ worth of pent-up hurt was like, then he wanted none of it. 

He was choking on his own tears. He could hardly breathe aside from tattered jerks of air that somehow managed to fit in his throat but lodged in it instead of passing. For the briefest of seconds he thought he might suffocate like that, when suddenly another sob wrenched his insides and tore out like a bullet out of a pistol’s barrel and he was able to breathe again. It didn’t make it much better because tears flowed and flowed and gave no indication of stopping any time soon, and the last fully coherent thought Corvo had before the complete muddling of his brain was that he felt like his eyeballs would melt and trickle out of his sockets by the end of it all. 

And all he could do was hold on because he felt his muscles would give out if he didn’t. Because it was the only thing that kept him anchored in any way whatsoever. Maybe he should have been surprised that Daud didn’t push him away in aversion, that he was the one to pull him into this clamp of an embrace in the first place, that he was still holding him even now, after— how many minutes? It felt like hours. And still Corvo cried, and still his body squeezed out every last drop as though it was a wrung wet rag, only, the tears just did not stop.

Even if he tried, he couldn’t coherently explain _why_ he was weeping, what exactly he was lamenting. Whether it be Jessamine’s death that suddenly played in his mind in tatters of worn-out memory, or her spirit’s absence at his chest that he felt so acutely it pierced him right through, just as she once was— Maybe it was the heavy notion that she left him all on his own after all. Only, that notion was getting slowly overshadowed by the warmth radiating from the man he was pressed against so tightly, by the faint smell of cigarette smoke that in the past weeks grew so familiar that he now latched onto it like a lifeline. And he buried his face utterly and shamelessly into the crook of Daud’s neck, and maybe he’d have—should have—felt wrong and shameful about it, if not for the way Daud’s hand on the back of his head guided and lulled him into it; and Corvo leaned into the touch, pressed into him, and with that all the care was gone from his mind like the wind that came and went as it pleased.

And Daud was hushing something, whispering something unimportant like a mantra, and his soft voice brought out a whole new surge of tears that gradually morphed this fit of hysterics into something that felt more like a relief, a calmly flowing river rather than a storm.

The uncontrollable sobs subsided with time and Corvo was left only with breaths so deep one could think that the air wasn’t enough for him. It took time to wind down, for his breaths to become a bit more measured and steady. The remaining tears that trickled out of his eyes did so completely on their own, without sucking any more strength out of him because he simply didn’t have any left. Corvo had no idea anyone could physically cry so much. Maybe it just seemed like it due to how spent he felt. He felt like a squeezed-out sponge, weak in all his joints and limp in the knees and he thought it a miracle that he still managed to stand upright. Perhaps he wouldn’t be able to if Daud wasn’t there to support him—at this point he wasn’t sure who was holding whom tighter but it didn’t matter. He nestled on Daud’s shoulder with his eyes closed, felt his breathing stabilizing slowly and he could fall asleep right then and there.

Maybe it was his lack of energy that didn’t let him pull away as he thought that he rationally should, or maybe it was the fact that he couldn’t remember the last time he felt so emptied out and artificially placid and thus yearned to soak in as much of it as he could while it lasted.

Because he knew that as soon as he pulled away the spell would break and he’d be forced to address all of this. Because he’d have to apologize for this shameful display, for the utter wreck that it turned out he actually was, for being unable to keep it to himself and making Daud deal with this, for having kissed him beforehand— oh, Void.

Bloody Void.

A quiet, acidic laugh rumbled in the depths of his chest and soon spilled out onto the surface, and Corvo thought that he must have gone completely hysterical because he seemed to have no control over himself anymore.

By the Outsider, he wanted all of this to stop. 

He just wanted to sink into a deep sleep, to forget about all of this, to not ever have to explain himself because he wouldn’t be able to manage anything more than _don’t mind me, I just had no idea that I’m a fucking mess._

So he stayed where he was, tucked safely into the crook of Daud’s neck—it seemed so incredibly counterintuitive and he shook at the irony with another laughing fit that, as he felt himself being slowly pushed away, morphed into a petulant groan. He didn't pay it any mind; he already hit rock bottom, what was the point? His name was called quietly, once, twice, and he didn’t want to open his eyes but did so anyway—his eyelids were puffy, the air stung painfully as though he dove into concentrated salt water and he squinted, finding Daud’s gaze almost on accident and immediately averting his own, going as far as to turn his head away on impulse.

“Corvo.”

There it was again, his name said in that gravelly voice, its connotations having changed so radically since the day they met in Albarca—first enmity, then guilt, then anchorage—now it was simply a temptation, luring him into a trap, and Corvo was already shaking his head before Daud could finish saying the word.

 _“Corvo._ Look at me.”

“No.”

Has his voice always sounded so hoarse? He could barely hear himself speak.

“Yes. Look at me.”

Corvo closed his eyes, slowly rolled his head back to an upright position and then forced his eyes wide open, almost spitefully. The wind slashed like a knife and he squinted again, feeling his vision growing foggy with moisture that gathered rapidly due to all the irritated sensitivity. He could only be thankful for the darkness, he wouldn’t be able to handle any kind of direct light right now. 

All he could miraculously glean through the fog of his watering eyes was what looked like genuine concern in Daud’s gaze that was directed straight at him, and it was unnerving. Corvo’s seen that concern before, but now it was different—it was piercing, it threaded him down to the bone and he felt it reverberating in the chill at his spine; he tried to pull or look away because it shouldn’t have been so present and real.

But it was, and he couldn’t look away, and Daud held him in place by the shoulders and it took only a few moments to go from the feeling of being trapped to feeling… safe. Secure. 

Maybe it was due to the fact that he‘s been apparently starved of physical contact for literal years. It made sense—it would explain why he basically dragged Daud to bed while drunk, why he kissed him so suddenly, why pulling away from his hold was the last thing he wished to do, why Daud’s hands on the sides of his shoulders felt so firm and steadying and Corvo just wanted to lean against him again, in spite of himself. 

But it wasn’t just that, of course. It was the way Daud was looking at him. Like he genuinely cared, not just about his role in the Empire, not just his the wellbeing in the face of the mission, but about _him,_ and Corvo thought that must have been the absurdest thing he’s ever seen but he’s been trusting his eyes for years and wasn’t about to stop now.

And when Daud, looking somewhat nonplussed, searched his eyes and said, “Talk to me,” in an oddly tender tone, it only served as a confirmation. 

“I don’t know,” Corvo rasped truthfully when he found his voice. “I don’t know what to say.”

After the outburst his mind was left cleared of most things associated with it and he had no desire to revisit any of it right now. 

Daud nodded, visibly trying and failing to suppress a sigh. He looked exhausted. Corvo almost scoffed bitterly at the thought—they’d lead one another straight to their graves, at this rate.

“I’m, uh—” he began, not knowing what he wanted to say but he knew that he at least had to address all that’s happened. Somehow. For decency’s sake. Daud’s hands have by now slid down to roughly his elbows and still held him, though more loosely, like the man saw no more need for it but still did, absentmindedly, maybe without really noticing. Corvo didn’t mind, he found—not at all. “Sorry. About all this. I just—”

Maybe he said something wrong because Daud frowned like he just bit into an unexpectedly sour fruit. 

“No,” he said. “Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Apologizing. Corvo, you’re the last person that needs to apologize, at least understand that.”

That must have been the most assured-sounding sentence that Daud’s said since Corvo went into the vault. It made Corvo breathe out a small sigh of relief he barely even registered, and when he broke eye contact it felt like they’ve been holding it for hours. He raised a hand and rubbed his weary eyes. They itched; he tried not to irritate them further with his fingers and stopped, and instead gave a couple of hard blinks.

“Okay,” was all he managed to say.

Daud sighed once more and took his hands away, and Corvo immediately and acutely felt their absence. The man looked at him for a while longer, like he was unsure whether Corvo would decide to break down again anytime soon. 

“We should go,” he finally said and Corvo nodded absently, not really sure how much time they’ve spent here. He was glad to wear his mask again, at least, to finally let his eyes rest from the cold air.

*

They went on at a moderate pace; Daud didn’t want to rush Corvo, not after so much emotional and consequently physical strain he put himself through. Daud could still clearly see the stiffness in his movements—though, thankfully, much less so than on his return from the vault. Yes, he decided after all, Corvo simply need time. After a good night’s rest he should be good as new. He hoped.

He didn’t think about anything on their way to the private dock, didn’t think about anything in the skiff. Thinking was pointless right now. Billie was dozing when they arrived and they got in quietly, careful not to wake her. Sokolov simply gathered their confirmation that they got everything they needed and took off, and Daud was so glad that this little crew seemed to have a good sense of when the right time for small talk was and when wasn’t. 

The trip back to the _Dreadful Wale_ was mostly silent. Corvo didn’t take off his mask; maybe he fell asleep for a bit, Daud couldn’t tell. They were all exhausted—upon their arrival, Billie marched straight to her cabin and Sokolov downed a cup of tea before doing the same, and only then did Corvo come down from the deck. Daud assumed he’s been spying on them through the Void, waiting for them to leave so he could take off his mask without having to answer questions about, simply put, looking like shit. 

Daud supposed he looked a bit better now, objectively speaking. His eyes weren’t nearly as puffy or red anymore, though still bloodshot. The clear as day fatigue on his face was to thank for the majority of his sour appearance, though, and Daud was very surprised that Corvo didn’t immediately go to his room and pass out for the night. (It was closer to morning, at this point, but wouldn’t be light for another few hours.) Corvo just sat at the table in the briefing room, absently worrying the rim of his water-filled cup with his finger. 

Having already changed out of his coats into a loose shirt, Daud was walking into the galley for some water before bed and saw Corvo still sitting in the same spot, almost motionless. Daud took his cup and came out to join him at the table, sitting down across from him, then looked at Corvo for a moment, eyes narrowed, and sighed. 

“You gonna sit there all night?”

Corvo raised his eyes—just for a second, just enough for acknowledgment—and took a slow sip. 

“No, I’m— I’ll go soon.”

Daud knew that look, that attitude—knew it all too well himself.

“You need sleep,” he said, because for some reason Corvo wasn’t going to bed and clearly wasn’t planning to, and needed a push. “You look like you’re about to pass out; do that in your bed, at least.”

Corvo tensed. Ever so slightly, almost unnoticeably, but still.

Daud sighed once again, propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin against his hand.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, as if there was only one answer to that question. 

Corvo shook his head with a light frown and took another sip, staring into the cup, at the table, anywhere but at Daud. “Nothing, I’m fine.”

Daud almost scoffed. 

“No,” he said. “You’re not.”

The man shook his head again.

Silence followed and Daud felt an urge to get up and just go to bed, but he forced himself to stay put. That urge felt irrelevant now, anyway—something was scrubbing at Corvo and he’d be damned if he didn’t at least try to pull it out of him.

Just when did he assign such a responsibility to himself?

He took a sip of his water, flitted his eyes over the table and grabbed a nearby-lying newspaper just to kill some time with. He wasn’t going anywhere, and if that didn’t make Corvo either crack or go to bed, then— well, he didn’t think that far ahead.

Fortunately for him, Corvo spoke up a couple minutes later after all.

“Go to bed, Daud.”

 _Now_ Daud scoffed. He lowered the paper and glanced at Corvo from under his brow. “I just told you the same thing two minutes ago.”

Corvo mumbled something under his breath, faltering. Daud frowned. This wasn’t quite like him.

But then, he supposed, most of the events of this past couple of hours weren't ‘quite like him’. He couldn’t blame him, not in the least.

“Corvo,” he said, forcing his voice into a softer tone. That seemed to get his attention, at least some of it. “What’s wrong?”

The other shook his head again slightly, and it was clear that he was trying to either pull himself together or find the right words, so Daud didn’t rush him. 

“I can’t,” he finally squeezed out.

The follow-up questions were implied—it felt wrong to push. Daud resolved to try to be patient and see if that led anywhere. 

It took another good minute or two for Corvo to speak again. “My cabin, the last time I was there, she—”

Daud immediately understood and Corvo shut up and tightened his lips as though he said something he shouldn’t have. “It’s stupid,” he muttered. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’ll sleep on the couch here.”

“Sleep in my room,” Daud blurted out before he even had a chance to register it and it startled them both. After a moment’s hesitation, though, it didn’t seem to him like the worst idea. “You need proper rest. I’ll take the couch.” Letting Corvo sleep there was out of the question—it was small and rigid and if there was a night where Daud could sacrifice his rest in favor of Corvo’s, then this was the one.

If that could make him stop from spiraling into thoughts of Jessamine for a few hours that he desperately needed for sleep, then there was no question about it.

Corvo frowned. “Oh, no, it’s fine—”

“Don’t argue.” His tone must have said it all because Corvo heaved a surrendering sigh. With the decision made, Daud stood up, and, to his relief, so did Corvo. The latter went into the galley to put away his cup while Daud made his way back to his cabin where he gathered his coat so as to at least have something to put under his head. After some time Corvo came to stand in the doorway, looking terribly discomfited like he didn't want to intrude, but at least he didn't argue. Giving him space, Daud went out into the main room and rolled his coat into a makeshift pillow, then plopped it down onto one end of the couch. Just looking at it made his spine groan. On second thought, maybe he’d go up to the bridge; despite the lack of bedding and just how rigid that bunk was, the size was decent and surely it was better than breaking his back on this miserable pile of planks. But it was also a bit colder up there, so—

“Daud.”

Daud sighed at the couch, still half-submerged in contemplations as he came back out into the hallway to find Corvo standing just as he’d left him. He softly clicked his tongue. 

“You’re still here,” he grumbled. “Need anything?”

Corvo’s eyes were flitting about on the floorboards. He looked meek, somehow even… vulnerable. Like he was about to say something but didn’t really want to. He always had something to say and did so with confidence, this state of his seemed so wrong and Daud once again felt just how much he loathed to see him like this.

“Stay here?” Corvo finally half-said, half-asked.

Daud had to blink a couple times to let himself process the words. Corvo was looking at him out of a corner of his eyes now, looking somehow assured and uncertain at the same time and when the momentary silence felt pressing enough to make Daud squeeze out an answer, he cleared his throat.

“Uh… Sure. Alright.”

He realized he agreed when Corvo nodded and finally went into the room, disappearing out of sight.

Well. Alright.

He supposed Corvo had an excuse, of sorts—Daud could understand the sentiment of not wanting to sleep in a room that reminded him of Jessamine, right after losing her forever. He could also understand the wish to not be alone, at least for the time that it took him to stabilize.

If this would help make Corvo better, then so be it.

A minute later Daud found himself entering his lowly lit cabin and closing the door behind him. Corvo was in the process of taking off his jacket, slowly, looking somewhere down at it, not so much in concentration on the task but more of looking ashamed of his request. He said nothing, put his jacket and vest carefully on the table. To Daud’s relief he didn’t take off his shirt, then pulled off his boots and, as it seemed, waited for an invitation and Daud gave a stiff nod towards the bed, to which he gave a curt nod of his own and climbed onto the cot, settling in by the wall.

He spoke only after the sequence of Daud pulling off his own boots, turning off the lamp, sitting down on the edge of the cot and rolling his neck. 

“Thank you.”

The words were quiet, almost a whisper.

“You can thank me when you wake up well rested,” Daud grunted in response, then turned around to take a direct look at his face. Corvo was—finally—looking back straight on. “Make sure that you do.”

Corvo nodded, huffing out a light sigh, then closed his eyes while Daud reached to the foot of the bed to pick up the folded blanket and, pulling it up over them both, finally lied down. He lay stiff as a board on his back, mildly annoyed for the fact that all of a sudden he felt he wouldn’t possibly be able to fall asleep like this. 

Corvo couldn’t sleep yet, either, judging by the pattern of his breathing, but hopefully he would manage it after some time. Daud stared at the ceiling, counting scratches in the rusted paint left there from the years of this room being loaded with crates all the way up to the top—it used to be an extra storage room, Billie said. How many owners has this boat had previously, Daud wondered. Billie never did say how she came by it. 

With no hint of drowsiness in his eyes (which wasn’t the most pleasant sensation when mixed with the fact that he was pretty damn tired physically), as well as the sound of waves that he could hear through the wall combined with the sound of Corvo’s breathing that was gradually slowing down as minutes passed, Daud was thrown into the tangled mess of thoughts he’s been trying so hard to avoid. It’s been ages since he (consciously) shared a bed with someone; it felt strange, to say the least. In a few minutes’ time, having made certain that Corvo’s fallen asleep, he turned his head to take a look at him. It looked like the creases on his brow were frozen in time, even in sleep, and Daud suppressed an urge to reach over and smooth them out with his thumb. It’s only been a few minutes, anyway—hopefully Corvo’s muscles would relax fully with time.

Having him so close and yet separated by a sliver of space between them—it was a miracle how they could both fit on this flimsy cot without touching, Daud thought—made him examine Corvo’s face in great detail, or, at least, as much as the darkness let him. It took him a while to remember what happened after that night when they got plastered and then ended up in the same bed, and the memory was still very vague in his mind, but he remembered the tactile sensations of the weight, the body heat. When he pressed Corvo to him up on that balcony despite every rational thought in his head screaming against it, when that made Corvo let go of the reins on his self-control and break down in tears, somehow, that felt like a relief even to Daud. It was clear that it did Corvo some good, it seemed like a large portion of the weight has been lifted off his chest, at least visibly. And so it was easy to group together these events into a general outburst of repressed enduring and grief. Just as easy as it was to think of that kiss as an accident, of sorts—an impulsive act made out of desperation to feel something. It was easy to think that it meant nothing.

Now, as they lay next to each other for... however long it was, Daud felt himself sinking into the cot with the weight of fatigue and he saw that Corvo’s face has finally fully relaxed. So did the rest of him, apparently, because his head rolled further to the side, breaching the thin barrier of space between them and Daud felt his hair against his cheek. 

It was soft and a little ticklish, not enough to be uncomfortable, though, and it summoned a small smile to his lips.

It was nice.

He didn’t know how, he didn’t know why, but if this kind of closeness made Corvo feel content, at least for a little while, then Daud decided he was happy to provide. Even despite the surface-level wrongness of it, even despite the twisted morality of their combined past and how it translated into their present—he felt that it wasn’t relevant right now. Not when simple things like proximity and repose took the foreground. 

They both could do with a break from all the complications, he thought. It was quite a selfish thought, yes, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

He leaned his head a bit more to the side. Corvo’s hair smelled nice. It smelled of the ocean.

“Sleep, Corvo,” Daud mouthed, with barely any sound coming out, and finally closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 💃wowow look who's finally consCIOUSLY getting some slep together


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmfao I found (a little) more plot

It seemed like, for the first time in hours, the light didn’t hurt Corvo’s eyes when he opened them. Maybe it was because it wasn’t that bright in the first place, though he didn’t think it mattered much. 

What did matter, at least in the moment, was the pleasant weight settled on top of and across his midriff. The fact that that weight was Daud’s arm. The fact that, despite feeling moderately rested, Corvo wanted to slip back into the warm embrace of sleep and stay there, not worry about anything and just enjoy the simplicity of closeness that he so didn’t want to end.

Daud was asleep. It was practically the first thing Corvo noticed since they were turned towards one another—they must have shifted in their sleep since he clearly remembered them lying on their backs. He didn’t mind the change. Quite the opposite. He’d be lying to himself if he said that he hasn’t been counting on this, deep down, just a little. 

They were spiraling towards—something. It was getting increasingly difficult to ignore. Especially now, when he was so comfortably and loosely tucked against this man he never would have thought he’d be in any way close to. Daud seemed to be so at peace. Surely, that was a rarity—Corvo himself was no stranger to fitful sleep and knew perfectly well what it, as well as its opposite, looked like. It was good, he thought, that Daud was getting rest. 

Corvo wasn’t going to disrupt that. He yawned, shifted a little closer, and let Daud’s measured breathing lull him back to sleep. 

*

Daud’s breath hitched in his throat when he opened his eyes to find himself face to face with sleeping Corvo. After a moment of recollecting himself, a small chuckle broke loose—he should’ve expected something like this. He let a yawn push out of his chest, blinked his eyes a few times and only then realized that, in his sleep, he slung his arm across Corvo’s torso in something of a loose hug. 

It must have felt incredibly natural because he made no move to pull his arm back as soon as the thought passed through his mind. In fact, he didn’t move a muscle. 

He almost didn’t want to get up. He almost wanted to stay right there and feel Corvo’s warmth under his arm and through the thin blanket, feel that same subtle smell of the ocean that he fell asleep to. 

Maybe he could, stay like that, if he pretended that he needed more sleep. But, as a matter of fact, he didn’t, and he was never much good at pretense.

Daud never really considered that watching someone sleep could so easily inspire sensations of peacefulness. It looked like Corvo was finally getting the rest he needed; his sleep was calm, unburdened by nightmares or anything else unpleasant. All the recent events considered, that was a relief in its own right. 

Carefully, so as to not wake Corvo, Daud slipped out of bed. He rolled his neck, kneading the spot in its side that still tended to ache once in a while from having spent two months in an iron chair, then finally stood up and pulled on his boots. As soon as he did, he heard a rustling sound behind him and, turning around, found Corvo shifting in his sleep and stretching out into the cot's freed up space. Daud couldn’t help a soft chuckle at the sight.

There was still some leftover sausage in the galley’s icebox, though not much—enough for only a day or two. Daud didn’t suppose any of the _Wale’s_ residents wanted to eat dried fish for the next two weeks, which meant they were in for another trip to the markets before taking off to Dunwall. 

The smell of frying meat and potatoes must have woken Billie up, for she came into the galley after a time and, having idly wished a good morning, focused on brewing coffee.

“Are you going to eat?” Daud asked her, to which she hummed out a yes and sleepily rubbed her eye. She watched the coffee pot on the stove for a bit, then suppressed a yawn.

“You said you got Delilah’s soul last night,” she said. “Everything go alright with that?”

“Mhm.”

“How’d you do it?”

Out of all the things Daud’s been thinking about in the past however many hours, making up something to say when Billie (or Sokolov, who, knowing him and his interest in the occult, would demand to know every detail) asked about the rest of last night's mission, was the one thing he should have, but did not, do. 

“Well,” he began, hoping that the fact that he rarely spoke in detail about such things would excuse him from saying too much, “the Outsider gave… an artifact, of sorts, to contain it.”

That wasn’t really a lie, so Daud was incredibly grateful that Billie, in her still half-asleep state, seemed to take the answer at face value. With that curiosity satisfied, at least, now he didn’t have to look suspicious when he’d have refused to say anything more.

Still, he hurried to change the subject, just in case. “Which reminds me. We’re running a bit low on fresh food, might need to restock before heading out.” 

Billie was silent for a beat, then hummed something out in a way that wasn’t exactly agreeing. “Uh, about that.”

Daud flipped the sausages in the pan, then shot her a questioning look.

“We aren’t going anywhere,” Billie said. “Yet.”

Huh. “How so?”

“Aramis.”

Daud furrowed his brow, expecting her to elaborate. 

“We—” Billie frowned at the pot in front of her. “I need to get him somewhere safe.”

“I thought we agreed to take care of that when all the urgent matters were over and done with.”

“Yes, well, you can count this urgent, now. I realized that we pretty much left him for dead. Paolo’s dead and Abele’s out of the picture—it’s highly unlikely that anyone aside from those two knows about Aramis, and now that they’re done for there’s no one to bring him food and water. And now we’re about to leave. He’ll starve to death in there.”

Daud clicked his tongue. Wrapped up in Delilah’s web of tricks, they hadn’t thought about this. No doubt Corvo wanted to get to Dunwall as soon as possible, and even though a detour might not make much of a difference, time wise, even still— “Corvo won’t like this.”

“Well, that’s too bad. Because this boat isn’t moving an inch towards Gristol until that’s dealt with. And I’d do it myself if I had to, but, the way I see it, trying to cure Aramis is in Corvo’s best interests, seeing how the mining situation is one of the biggest things on his plate. The new Duke won’t be able to solve all the problems by himself.”

The sausage was done; Daud covered the pan with the potatoes with a lid to let them finish cooking. “I know you want to help Aramis, but I… hope you realize that he’ll never be as you once knew him.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Billie’s jaw tightening. Her voice was cold when she spoke. “Yes, I know.”

“Not to mention that, even with the best treatment, his return to his previous position is out of the question.” 

“I—” Billie closed her eye and let out a long breath. “I know. That’s— Yes, that’s not what it’s about, alright? I just want to make sure my friend will at least be in safe hands, whoever’s it may be.”

She took the pot off the heat, then grabbed two mugs from a shelf and began pouring coffee in a manner by which one could think it was a task highly demanding of concentration. Daud followed her with his eyes, giving a small nod and a sigh, then, having fetched two plates, absently filled them with food and left the leftovers on the stove. He handed Billie her plate, who exchanged it for a mug of coffee, a fork, and a knife. They ate standing up, not bothering to move into the main room. 

“Alright, then,” Daud broke the silence after a while. “Got any ideas?”

Billie chewed for a moment before answering. “Well, there’s only two exceptional doctors I’m acquainted with… Only, one of them never specialized in psychiatry and is in no shape to take care of anyone else, and the other was once drugged and forced to murder. And she has lost her medical facility.”

Daud cut off another piece of sausage. “Yes, well—even still, it looks like Hypatia’s your best bet.”

“Looks like it.” Billie put the knife down on the plate and tapped on the countertop with her black-shard fingers. “If she’s still in the Dust District, that is.”

“Don’t see why she wouldn’t be. In any case, she sounds decent enough. Corvo cured her, you sheltered her—can’t see her not agreeing to help, with a former mine baron, at that.” 

“A favor for a favor.”

“In a way.” Daud took a sip of his coffee. “And if we don’t find or get to her quickly, which I doubt we will, there is someone who can.”

Billie tilted her head, frowning inquisitively. 

“There’s a makeshift Miners’ Family Committee establishment in the Dust District. We met one of its members there—the one that apparently gave Hypatia shelter and set her up for work after the whole Addermire incident. She recognized Corvo, and… well, let’s say he deemed her trustworthy enough to fill her in on the plans, somewhat.”

Billie perked up and narrowed her eye, somewhat impatiently. “What was her name?”

“Lucia Pastor.”

“Ah—! I’ve heard that name. Did you tell her you were going to Stilton’s, or mention him to her at all?”

Daud hummed out a negative as he chewed.

“Well, that woman knows him,” Billie went on. “I’ve heard him talk about her on several occasions—his work has been tied pretty closely with the Committee.”

“Swell. Makes things easier.” Daud thought that made perfect sense. Stilton’s disappearance must have shaken up the Miners’ Family Committee quite a bit—at the very least, letting one of its most active members know what happened to the mine baron should be in favor for everyone involved. Aside from that, of course, this was important to Billie. She had to see this through, Daud empathized and understood— none of this would have been possible without her and her ship; securing the future of her friend was the least that she deserved.

“How’d you come across the Committee, anyway?” she asked after a while.

Daud finished off his meal, took another sip of coffee, and shrugged. “There was a lost kid, in one of the areas where the fighting broke out. The Committee had a shelter set up, to help the workers’ families, so we took him there.”

“Ah,” Billie dragged out with an amused sort of understanding in her voice and gave a couple of slow nods. “So that’s what took you so long.”

“It turned into a bit of a detour, yeah.”

Billie breathed out a soft chuckle and the sound intermixed with that of a door opening in the hallway. Sounds of footsteps followed, announcing the arrival of Corvo who showed up in the galley soon after, looking not fully awake yet, and Daud wondered if he and Billie have been talking too loudly.

“Morning,” Billie greeted, and Corvo echoed it in a reply, though, evidently with no care for sounding coherent because the word lumped together into one soft sleepy grunt.

“Did we wake you?” Daud asked, leaving his plate to go grab another, clean one. 

Corvo rubbed his eyes, then rapidly blinked a few times. “No. This smell, on the other hand—” he barely managed to finish the sentence before a plate with (still warm, thankfully) potatoes and sausage was shoved into his hands. The sight of food seemed to clear up the fog of sleep almost instantaneously, and he brightened up. “Oh. Thank you.” 

He stayed in the galley, as well—eating breakfast like that in a bit of a rush became somewhat of a habit in the past few days—and stood next to Daud, not going out of his way to look at him but also not avoiding eye contact. That was heartening. 

Daud said nothing about the new developments and change of plans, partly in expectation that Billie would tell Corvo herself, partly in desire to just let the man eat in peace. He went to refill his cup in the meantime, and poured one for Corvo as well, which the latter accepted with a nod and appreciative hum.

Corvo looked so much better. One could even think that he was properly refreshed—Daud was both surprised and relieved at the fact that a night of good, fulfilling sleep seemed to do the trick to bring him back on his feet, at least for the time being. Another trip to the Dust District sounded even better now, seeing as it could serve as a distraction, something to keep his mind running.

Short wisps of hair stuck out to the sides above Corvo’s ears. The disheveled state of his head was quite a regular morning occurrence, only, now it looked somehow… endearing. Failing to quickly and completely banish the thought, Daud instead locked it safely away. 

Realizing that his look might have been more prolonged and intent than necessary or appropriate for a simple cursory glance, he quickly turned his eyes back to his mug and swirled the coffee around in it. He tried to ignore how Billie was looking at him out of the corner of her eye as she chewed on the rest of her food, with her eyebrow raised so slightly no one else would notice it.

Corvo swallowed another piece of his breakfast and piped up. “I’m assuming we’ll be taking off after this, yes?” 

His tone was focused, just as it usually was when he talked business, though Daud gleaned notes that said he was in a favorable mood—or, at least, an attempt at such that seemed plenty significant when compared to his last night’s state.

Daud took an expectant sip from his mug. Billie cleared her throat.

“No, not after this,” she said.

Corvo washed down the potatoes with coffee. “No? When?”

“After we get Aramis to Hypatia.”

With a mild frown of confusion, Corvo turned to Billie and she looked back straight on. “After we what now?”

“You promised we would get Stilton out of that hole. Now’s the time to do that.” 

He held out a pause as his frown deepened. “And you just… decided that.”

“I did.” Billie raised an eyebrow, in earnest now, as if to say that she had every right. “There’s no one to bring him food and water now—you chose to kill Paolo. I’m not leaving Aramis to starve to death in there because of it.”

Corvo opened his mouth, looking ready to start arguing for the sake of it, though shut it after a moment, after all. Then lightly clicked his tongue in thought.

“Billie says Stilton knew Lucia Pastor,” Daud picked up for her, and Corvo perked up at the familiar name. “Which, with their occupations, isn’t surprising. She’ll be able to get him to Hypatia if we still can’t get ahold of the doctor ourselves.” Which, Daud hoped, would be the case, considering the time it might take to get to her. 

“Sounds like a huge responsibility to just dump on her,” Corvo said.

Billie scoffed, “I’ve no doubt she can squeeze in the relocation of the former mine baron himself into her busy schedule. They’ll at least want to attempt to cure him, I’m sure—from what I know of the Committee, their and Stilton’s views always went hand in hand.”

After a moment of what looked like thorough consideration, Corvo nodded. “Fine. That’s all fair. Now that I think of it, aside from all that, it might be a good idea to… fill Pastor in on the new changes.” He drummed his fingers on the table top, then nodded to himself once again. “Yes. That’s what we’ll do. The situation with Byrne needs to be contained as soon as possible, and with no guards in the area, who knows how long it’ll be until Armando learns about it. Pastor is our best bet in quickly securing communication between the Dust District and the Grand Palace.”

“And hopefully they’ll make the Bayles Trading Company ease up its grip on the mines,” Billie offered.

“Exactly. Batista is the very seam Karnaca is coming apart at, so that’s the first place to turn the new Duke’s attention to. While I’m not very optimistic about the improvement of Stilton’s condition… Although, who knows? Maybe getting him out of that time-warped box might help straighten out his brains a little.” Corvo shot Daud and Billie both a determined glance and tapped with his nail on the fork he was holding. “Good call. Paying another visit to the Committee will do good in tying up some loose ends. Get some influential faces more involved in the reconditioning.”

Daud could clearly see Billie’s relieved, measured sort of excitement, even though she tried not to show it. “Alright,” she said. “Then we should get this done quickly.”

“Please tell me we can just give Stilton’s location to whoever needs to know and be done with it,” Daud said, side-eyeing Billie in hopes that she didn’t have the unwarranted notion of hauling the moonstruck mine baron all the way across the Dust District that was by now probably teeming with Overseers. 

“As long as we make sure that he’ll be taken care of at the first priority,” she shrugged. “First, though, we need to restock on food before we leave—we’re already close to Campo Seta as it is, so I say we do that now and, if things go fast, we can be on our way to Batista by the latter half of the day.”

The plan was sound—they reached an agreement and picked up the pace in wrapping up with the meal and cleaning up. Billie left the galley, supposedly to take a shower, and Daud stayed to finish up with the dishes while Corvo finished his coffee. 

Only when Daud felt Corvo eyeing him on occasion, did he allow himself to look back. 

Corvo had a small, easy smile playing on his lips—just the slightest tilt at the corners of his mouth—so most of the warmth it relayed came from the eyes. Daud realized only after a couple moments that he was staring, then recollected himself and questioningly raised his eyebrows.

The other leaned against the counter and swirled the coffee in his cup, then raised his eyes back up.

“Thanks,” he said, his voice coming quiet and easy on the ears. 

Daud felt a curt inquiring hum in the back of his throat. “What for?”

Corvo chewed on his lip for a brief second while his smile grew, just a little bit, almost unnoticeably so. “You said to thank you if I ended up getting a good rest.”

The words brought on a pang of mild abashment, and a scoff was the only reaction Daud could manage. A pretty weak one, at that, if he was honest. Not really knowing what to say, he blinked a couple times. “Uh. Good.”

Corvo kept looking at him and Daud kept looking back, unknowing why he still did, but the warmth in the man’s eyes was somehow captivating and it was suddenly and obviously very difficult to keep brushing off the fact of their deliberate sharing of a bed as just a momentary necessity. Especially since Corvo showed this… coy satisfaction that did nothing but bring out the unwelcome but aching contentment of his own that Daud had allowed himself to feel with their bodies pressed so close. 

He blinked his eyes hard once, to try to clear the fog of uncalled-for sentimentalities, and it was the same moment when Billie entered the galley once more—Daud switched his attention to finishing rinsing the plates as soon as she did—and strode over to one of the lower shelves that served as general storage space, taking a bar of soap from it. Corvo gulped down the rest of his coffee in the meantime, then handed the empty cup to Daud (who took it without complaint, seeing as he was already washing the dishes), and left. 

So did Billie, after a moment, though Daud did not miss a long look of suspecting wonder she first regarded him with.

*

“Hold that, will you?”

Corvo hoisted the heavy sack of beans Billie handed to him over his shoulder, assuming with a sigh of benign exasperation that ‘holding’ it meant being appointed to carry it. He was quite pleased with the weather—the sun shone bright as usual but the heat wasn’t baking, so loitering in the crowded market square was a task much more favorable than last time. Well—he was the one loitering, more like, tagging along with Billie as an extra pair of hands while she flitted from one stand to another in a purposeful manner that showed she knew the place inside and out. Daud stayed with the skiff, seeing as Sokolov was still sleeping when they left and Billie didn’t want to bother him unnecessarily, preferring to let the old man rest as he needed.

Leaving the Heart on the ship was a better idea than Corvo at first thought it’d be—the longer and farther he could stay away from that hunk of flesh, the better. The mere memory of the foul presence of Delilah’s soul made every minute spent away from it feel like a gulp of fresh air. 

After a while, having acquired a packet with a month’s worth of pipe tobacco and a few cigarette packs, they paused in a shady spot to take a breather and tally up whatever staple foods they still needed to get.

Billie put down the bag of rice next to her on the stone ledge she was sitting on, then opened a cigarette pack and fished around in her pocket for a matchbox. 

“Corvo,” she began, and he turned away from the bustling marketplace to face her with a questioning hum. Billie paused to light a cigarette, shielding it from the current of the ocean breeze with her cupped hand. “What are your intentions with Daud?”

The question caught him off guard and Corvo was glad for the mask on his face that hid his widened eyes. The casual nature of Billie’s voice seemed to only underscore how penetrating her gaze seemed by comparison. 

“Intentions?” he echoed, in part genuinely confused due to the unforeseen inquiry, in part in attempt to play dumb because, in the face of some recent developments, it was impossible to not catch on to what she meant. 

The steely patience of her stare, however, suggested that any attempts at the latter would be lost on her. She didn’t even bother to tell him so—she knew that he could see it himself. 

“Daud thinks he’s so discreet when he’s concerned about someone,” she continued, “that sometimes he might not even realize it himself. Unfortunately for him, if you know what to look for, it becomes painfully obvious.” Billie took a drag and tapped on the cigarette to drop off the ash as she breathed out some of the smoke, then raised her eye back up and studied Corvo intently. “And I’m not even talking about how well you two ended up getting along, though, that’s part of it, isn’t it?”

Discontented with the way it felt like Billie was unwarrantedly poking her nose in his business, Corvo wanted to bring a nip of cold into his voice but, ultimately, couldn’t manage it. “Part of what?”

“You tell me.”

Whether he liked it or not, with her and Daud’s long history, he supposed Billie had a right to her questions. That didn’t alleviate the sense that he was put on some sort of trial, however, and that didn’t sit well with him. 

“Look,” he began without knowing what he was going to say, and immediately caught the reflexively defensive stance of his tone. In attempt to lessen it, he heaved a sigh. Did he, indeed, have any intentions? The notion seemed ridiculous enough, only, it was getting increasingly harder to pretend that whatever sentiments he held for Daud had simply surfaced in the spur of the moment, out of desperation— And perhaps that was indeed exactly how they appeared, only, it didn’t look like they were going away. If anything, they were growing. 

Really, it was a strange concept. The fact that Billie caught on to it only confirmed its undeniable presence. From his and Daud’s sides, both.

He even had no idea what Daud thought of any of this. Corvo almost scoffed at that—it wasn’t like he knew what he himself thought of it, either.

And yet, Billie kept looking at him, her gaze expectant but surprisingly patient, giving no accusatory impressions. She looked... trustworthy.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Intentions? Pretty sure there are none.” Not conscious ones, anyway. What could they have? Could they even have _anything?_ How? There were too many logistics to figure out for anything to be possible. 

Did any of it matter, anyway? It certainly wouldn’t when he was back in Dunwall, buried in his duties, trying to bring everything back in order. Suffice to say, his mind would be occupied enough.

“No,” Corvo solidified his answer, “no intentions.”

“And yet, there’s something.”

Corvo saw no reason to deny, so he inclined his head.

Billie gave a humorless, somehow even pensive, scoff.

“I don’t know what’s been brewing between the two of you, and, frankly, that’s not my business. But I can safely say that Daud somehow cares for you, and, considering your shared past, I’m not sure how well that bodes for him.” She tapped out her cigarette. “But, again, that’s his shit to sort out. I guess… I just think you should be aware that he never expected any of this.”

The last sentence managed to break the slight stupor Corvo fell into, and he barely held himself back from scoffing. He, too, was no stranger to struggling with unforeseen developments. “I get that,” he said, somewhat weakly. 

Billie’s eye glinted with something challenging, provocative— _do you, now?_ —but she said nothing. Only nodded. 

Soon, she stubbed out the cigarette on the stone ledge and dropped it on the ground, then picked the bag of rice back up as she rose. “Whatever you may or may not feel for him,” she said, a bit too idly for Corvo’s liking, “just don’t confuse him any more than you need to, hm?”

Corvo watched her for a moment as she walked away, then shook out his head in attempt to clear it, and followed. 

He had no desire to argue or ask to elaborate.

*

Of course, Corvo thought, it was so damn easy to have it all figured out, logically and objectively, when he was away from the heart of the issue. He wanted to laugh—the warm lurch in his chest that he felt as soon as his eyes fell on Daud reclining in the skiff seemed to erase any and all credibility from his previous ruminations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :’)


	25. Chapter 25

Under cover of descending night, with the promise of swift regrouping, Billie slipped into the manor with the goal of bringing Stilton a canister of water and some bread that they could spare. 

“Don’t stay in there too long,” Daud had said out of worry that whatever Corvo’s meddled with may have knocked the magic in the place even farther off balance—not that there was one in the first place—after she’d refused to let him go instead, in favor of saving time. “Drop off the things and go back to the skiff right away, you’ve had more than enough exposure to that shi—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Billie had cut him off, looking ready to roll her eye but holding out against it, though Corvo had spied the subtlest ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “I’ll be fine. And you,” she’d raised an eyebrow at the both of them then, “don’t go consorting with the Overseers too much.” 

Corvo had snorted and she’d almost laughed—though disappeared behind the heavy door before she had the chance. 

“She better not go snooping around in there,” Daud grunted as they made their way around the wall of light. His voice came low amidst the creaking of the windmill, the occasional howling of the wind, and the fact that he was partly muffled by the scarf—Corvo had to strain his ears in order to hear properly. The rapidly falling dusk did well to hide them from view of the guards in the Plaza. “The bastard just couldn’t give her a regular Mark, could he—”

“I’m sure she appreciates having two arms, Daud.”

Daud grumbled something under his breath that Corvo couldn’t make out—he was sure that it was nothing important, anyway, with the way it looked like the man felt like complaining just for the sake of it. Corvo felt a chuckle forming in the back of his throat. 

He was glad that they headed out as it was getting dark. That way, he didn’t have to clearly see all the glaring problems of the district that painfully stood out in broad daylight. Over the course of only several days, at first glance, the situation hasn’t changed much—with Paolo gone, the remaining Howlers still tried to push the Overseers back. At a closer look, however, it was clear they were out of luck. Disorganized but desperate, they held their own for as long as they could, seeing as they had nowhere to run. Perhaps, if the district wasn’t sealed off, most of them would have fled. Now, though... Corvo only hoped that Byrne wasn’t more bloodthirsty than he appeared.

Although, he wouldn’t say that getting captured by Overseers was any better than dying in the street. 

He shuddered at the thought. So many able but aimless people killing and getting killed, and for what? It was difficult to pity any of them.

Perhaps it wasn’t too late to stop the Abbey’s spreading over Serkonos in its tracks. Corvo wondered just how closely he’d be able to monitor the progress of that all the way from Dunwall.

Filling in Lucia Pastor, and consequently anyone she’d deem trustworthy and valuable to bring into the loop, on everything that’s happened was of utmost importance. Even if it felt insignificant. Even if it was highly unlikely that anything major could be administered right away to improve the conditions in the district. But they had to start somewhere.

“What will you tell her?” Daud asked, practically reading his thoughts. They were perched on a top-story ledge in one of the alleys leading up to Avila Avenue, trying to see if there was a way to slip by from the other side, seeing as Overseers have begun trickling out onto the street on their thorough patrol.

Corvo jumped and pulled himself up onto the roof, then adjusted his lenses to zoom in onto the darkening street below. Soon, he felt Daud standing nearby behind. 

“Mostly about the situation with the Duke,” Corvo answered. “Or any other relevant information she may ask for, really.”

He didn’t much like how the notion made him feel. Careless. Maybe even a bit desperate.

Daud, evidently, shared the concern. “You trust her?” he asked with a hint of dubiousness.

Corvo pressed his lips in consideration, then sighed. “I… have to.” Pastor’s favorable reputation aside, they’ve only met once—that fact didn’t do very well in assuring that it was alright to lay bare all their plans before her, just like that. The situation with Armando was different, they had to act fast and make the best of the situation—

Though, this here was the same thing, wasn’t it?

“We… have to trust that these people will do what’s in this country’s best interest, just as they have in the past, when their efforts weren’t trampled by the Duke,” Corvo added. Even still, it felt like leaving it all up to fate. 

But that was just what he had to deal with. He couldn’t be in all places at once, he was just one man, after all. 

Besides, his conscience nagged, the fact that the crown has been unacceptably neglectful of the matters here took away the right to consider this only his issue to solve. 

“We have to trust the Serkonan people to run their country,” Corvo said then. After all, they were the ones that have been living here, they were the ones who knew what they needed most. Armando’s words rang true in his ears. “We can’t do it for them.”

“Because that turned out so well for you last time.”

“It’s… different.”

“How?”

Daud sounded like he genuinely sought to understand. Corvo chewed on his tongue, trying to put the vague concepts in his mind into words.

“Karnaca is about to start again with a clean slate. Somewhat clean, anyway. In order for anything to work at all, some of the power needs to be given into the right people’s hands. With the new Duke, that should be much easier to do.” It was so easy to say because it was so logical—and still he felt uneasy about it. They didn’t spend nearly enough time to have any sort of chance at determining who were the right people for the job. 

The shelter wasn’t as bustling as the last time they were here; soup wasn’t being served—it looked like the kitchen worked on a specific schedule. The conversations of the miners that weren’t currently working their shift filled the space with a warm buzzing; some turned their heads to regard the strange visitors with curiosity or mistrust. Corvo swept his eyes over the room, swiftly taking in the faces and the figures in search of the woman at the head of the establishment.

Just as he was about to head into the farther rooms, a young woman in a grey worker’s jumpsuit came out from a hallway in the back, froze in place as her eyebrows shot up when her gaze fell on the two men across the room, and then she whirled around and ran back to where she came from. Corvo and Daud exchanged glances—after a moment, though, Corvo thought that he recognized the lady from the last time they were here. 

She must have recognized them first, because a few minutes later, out of the same hallway quickly walked out Lucia Pastor and made her way directly to them. The younger woman trailed after her at first, then went about her original business while occasionally shooting the three of them curious looks over the shoulder.

“Gentlemen,” Lucia greeted them with a furrowed brow and half-questioning tone. She was holding a cigarette, her hair was pulled back in a knot that looked tighter than was comfortable, shadows lay under her eyes. “How can I help you?” she asked, though her eyes gleamed with knowing, concerned sort of inquiry. 

“We need to talk,” Corvo said in a considerably lowered voice and watched Lucia’s eyes narrow even more. She flitted a glance at them both, jerked her head in a small nod indicating her expectancy of them to follow her, then turned around and headed toward the back rooms. On the other side of what could be called a labyrinth of laid-out bed rolls, benches, and tables and desks that stood in peculiar positions to be used as division of room space, Lucia unlocked a small door with one of the keys from her bunch and ushered Daud and Corvo through before going in after them and closing it behind her. They ended up outside, in a narrow secluded alley with a canopy stretching overhead between this and the neighboring buildings. Lucia walked along the wall, looking curtly over her shoulder and around in search of other people—Corvo immediately swept his eyes over the surroundings through the Void, finding no one nearby.

Lucia stopped and turned around to face them. “You’re back. What’s going on?”

Corvo wasn’t sure where to even begin—he decided to start where they left off last time. 

“The Duke,” he said, “is dealt with.”

The woman’s eyes widened, gleamed with a sort of excited agitation rather than surprise. She gave a vague wave of her hand, wordlessly and impatiently demanding elaboration. She was clearly tired, very on edge. “Well?”

“You didn’t hear it from us,” Corvo continued quietly, “because, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, the Duke is alive and well. And—he is, but he’s in a different place now. He’s been replaced by his body double.”

He didn’t know what kind of reaction to expect after saying that, but Lucia’s eyebrows shot up in an instant.

“Armando?” she hissed.

“You know him.” Her reaction considered, it wasn’t much of a question.

“Yes, we’ve been working— _trying_ to work together, in the past. He was my only link to the Duke, but Armando’s range of motion was immensely restricted.”

“That’s no surprise. Might I ask what you were trying to do?”

“Well, only recently, a couple months ago Armando had an idea for a petition I helped him work out—asking the wealthy who profited from the silver trade to accept a twenty percent tax increase on silver, which would be applied to improving the lives of the workers.” Lucia took a tense drag on her cigarette, her eyes darting absently on the ground as the wheels in her head turned. “Eventually, the increased silver prices would reduce the demand on the mines and slow them down. I wrote the petition up, addressing it to the Duke; the Palace Guard obviously refused to take it, so I asked Armando to bring it to his attention himself. It… didn’t work.”

“Well it can work now,” Corvo filled in, determination flooding back into his voice as he was slowly getting reassured that Lucia Pastor would make the best of the situation, that the information they brought to her was in safe hands. “Armando is in power now. I shouldn’t have to tell you that information is confidential—the transition needs to be seamless, to reduce the risk of suspicion as much as possible, so as much as I’d love to tell him to make the Bayles hand over the mines—”

Lucia shook her head. “You couldn’t, anyway. There is no competition or alternative,” she said, and Corvo pressed his lips to hold in a swear. “The Duke, unfortunately, can’t just snap his fingers and make the Bayles slow down the mines instantly—the company would collapse with the sudden silver shortage and there’d be no one to pick up the pieces right away. Whatever needs to happen has to be gradual.”

“Then follow through with that petition to start with,” Daud said and Lucia nodded rapidly.

“That is what I’m thinking. I’ll send him another letter with the petition right away.” She sucked in a long, tense breath. “I… can hardly believe that the Duke is gone. He’s alive, you say? I don’t know how you managed to perform this switch, and I probably don’t want to know—”

“You’re right,” Corvo agreed, “you don’t. Don’t worry about it. Just make sure you come into contact with the Duke right away—as far as you, or I, or everyone else is concerned, from this moment on, Armando is Luca Abele. Don’t reveal in writing that you know who he is—he should figure that out himself based on the timing of your request.” Lucia kept nodding as she held the cigarette between her teeth and reached into the pocket of her jumpsuit, then pulled out a pencil and a small notepad, flipped it open and began to jot something down. “Especially if you send him several letters, repeatedly. He should be clever enough to immediately instruct the Palace Guard to start bringing all the correspondence they get to him directly.”

Lucia hummed out her assent as the pencil in her hand worked, if not a bit feverishly, across the small surface area of the page. Corvo took a deep breath.

“And another thing,” he began, though cut himself off before long. “Doctor Hypatia still isn’t here?”

“No, she’s currently on the other side of the district. There’s a smaller Committee hub there, closer to the mines.” Lucia folded the notepad and the pencil into one hand, tapped out her cigarette with the other, and fixed her gaze on Corvo’s mask. “Why?”

Corvo did not stall. “Stilton is alive and found.”

Lucia’s mouth dropped open, and he hurried to continue speaking before she could interrupt.

“I can’t explain everything, there’s no time and right now it isn’t relevant. What _is_ relevant is that Stilton went mad, and has been locked inside his manor ever since his disappearance. I doubt it’s possible to return him to his previous state, but now that the Duke is replaced he needs to be moved to safety and given medical attention. Abele has been employing a few Howlers to keep him sustained in the manor, but—”

“Paolo is dead,” he and Lucia finished the sentence simultaneously and she drew her brows together. “It’s all the talk on the street. The fighting seems to be dissipating, which is good, but the damned Abbey—”

“…Needs to also be dealt with, yes.” Void, there was a lot to be done. Corvo loathed to dump it all on Lucia’s shoulders at once. “About which I will get into contact with the Duke as soon as possible, although, since we’re about to head to Gristol, that won’t be for a few weeks.” If everything went according to plan, that was. Corvo couldn’t afford to think about anything less than success now. “Lucia, you are our best bet at quickly telling the Duke to switch off the wall of light at the district’s entrance and call the Grand Guard back in. Aside from that, Stilton needs to be placed into Doctor Hypatia’s hands. Can we count on you?”

Lucia took a final tense drag on her cigarette and dropped it on the ground, stubbing it out with her toe before flipping open her notepad once again and frantically beginning to write. She shook her head slightly, as if in disbelief. “You better come through for us fast, Lord Attano. We’re all in this mess, now. Going to need all the help we can get.”

Corvo took that as a yes and let loose a curt chuckle. “Indeed. Trust me, you will be seeing immediate changes and attention from the capital very soon.” Lucia pressed her lips together and nodded as she finished writing. “I’ll give you the combination to the Jindosh Lock on the manor’s gate—” he held out his hand in a questioning gesture, and the woman handed over the notepad and pencil for him to quickly jot down the key. Then, after a second’s consideration, he wrote one other word below, underlined it twice for good measure, and returned the notepad.

“If this can help at all, in any way… Please tell Doctor Hypatia that Stilton went mad specifically because of Delilah. It’s highly probable that this lunacy of his isn’t of a regular kind.”

Lucia looked like she was about to ask to elaborate, but Corvo shook his head and she nodded instead, then quickly ran her eyes over the page and put the notepad and pencil back in her pocket. 

“I’ll send some people to get him as soon as possible,” she said, her voice hard with determination and assurance, and Corvo nodded as well.

“Thank you,” he said. “For everything.”

Lucia only gave a soft snort in response.

As they made their way back through the shelter’s sleeping areas, Corvo’s blood went ice cold and he froze on the spot when a high shrill pierced the level murmuring of the shelter’s occupants.

_“Daud!”_

Overtaken by shock, against all rational thought, Corvo held in a hiss and whipped his head around on instinct only to see how a small whirl with copper hair barreled towards the aforementioned man and practically slammed into his leg. 

Daud looked just as surprised as Corvo felt, though he was sure that anyone who hasn’t spent as much time with the man as he has wouldn’t be able to tell.

While Corvo frantically darted his eyes around the room, trying to glean recognition on the faces of the people who perked up at the sound, Lucia loudly shushed at the boy.

“Migel, what did I tell you about yelling at nighttime?! Or yelling in general? You’re being disruptive to everyone else!”

It wasn’t that Corvo forgot that the kid was here, it was— well, yes, amidst everything going on he did indeed forget that the kid was here. 

Perhaps he was one of the reasons why Lucia seemed so deadbeat. 

Migel, at least, had the decency to look sheepish. “Sorry,” he mumbled and immediately turned his attention to Daud, raising his head and standing on tiptoes. “You’re back!”

Daud, having quickly collected himself, let out a soft chuckle as he looked down at the boy. “Yes, though not for very long.” 

Migel’s face scrunched up in a petulant pout, but at least he didn’t look distraught like last time. That was a bit of a relief—Corvo didn’t pay it much mind, however, as he threw worried looks at Lucia as well as the people around the room who quickly went back to their quiet conversations. It took him a second to let out a silent sigh of relief at the fact that they weren’t in Dunwall, that all these people had much more important things to worry about than being in one room with an infamous assassin who’d worked halfway across the world— It was highly unlikely that anyone recognized the man or even remembered those articles in the papers from decades ago.

Besides, he was sure that “Daud” wasn’t as rare of a name as he thought it probably was. Especially in Serkonos. Not that many people knew the real name of the Knife of Dunwall, in the first place. 

All the self-reassurances over and done with, Corvo turned his eyes back to the little scene of reunion. He wasn’t listening to the dialogue Daud and Lucia were having, he only saw that Migel was looking up at the two of them curiously, forced solemnity looking comical in his expression as he tried to appear relevant and pretended to be part of the discussion. His small hand was in Daud’s—though Corvo didn’t see how it came to be there.

The sight made a smile grow on his face. He couldn’t deny the feeling of warmth that spilled in his chest.

It took only a few moments for the boy to tire of trying to appear important and grown up (despite the hand holding) and grow bored, so he turned to look at Corvo and the latter had to come closer to hear him over the rising background noise.

“When will you visit again?”

Corvo pressed his lips into a small sheepish smile, even though it went unseen beneath the mask. “I don’t know.”

“You will, right?”

“Maybe. Someday.”

“Well I hope you do.” 

“Good to know.”

 _Void—_ Barring their last time in the Dust District, it’s been ages since he’s had to interact with kids. Thankfully, Migel didn’t seem to mind his verbal clumsiness and beamed up at him anyway. Seeing the boy this lively truly was a relief—Corvo’s smile grew once again in return, and he reached out to pat him on the head. 

Soon, they left and headed back toward the skiff. In a miraculously long moment of respite from the wind and the sandstorms, they stopped on one of the flat roofs to take a break. Night fell fully by this point—Corvo sat down on the tiling, lifted the mask off his face, and sucked in a breath of rare fresh air. The tip of Daud’s cigarette glowed red in the darkness, dimly illuminating his face. 

“You couldn’t, I don’t know, give Migel a different name to call you by?” Corvo scoffed up at him. “I nearly got a heart attack back there.” 

Daud snorted. “Well it’s about time someone held you accountable for tangling with the Knife of Dunwall. You’re ruining your reputation, Lord Protector.”

That drew a laugh out of him. “Oh, please.” He let silence hang in the air for a moment, then broke it once again. “They didn’t find his mom, did they?”

“No.”

Corvo clicked his tongue in hopeless sort of resignation. “At least he’s with good people.”

“Mhm.”

After a minute or so, Daud spoke up again. “You feel better about all of this now?”

It took Corvo a second to understand what he meant; then, he let out a deep sigh. “Yeah, uh— I’d say so.” Now that he thought about it, he really did feel better. “It’s good that we came here again. It’s not much, but at least it doesn’t feel like completely leaving Karnaca up to fate.”

The conversation with Lucia felt in no small part like a weight off the shoulders. Daud gave a low hum of agreement, then, after a minute when he finished his cigarette and stubbed it out at his feet, let out a small sigh of his own.

“You did well,” he said, then caught and held Corvo’s gaze despite the darkness. “Someone has to tell you.” 

Corvo breathed out a scoff, though it quickly turned into a genuine smile. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess we did.” As much as they could, anyway.

Daud gave a curt huff in response, and reached out his hand toward him. “Ready to go?”

Corvo’s smile remained as he lowered the mask back over his face, then clasped Daud’s hand in his and let himself be pulled up to his feet.

*

“Anton!” gasped Billie all of a sudden, jumping up from her seat and darting towards her cabin. “I completely forgot—”

Sokolov perked up and followed her with his gaze, eyebrows raised as he took a sip of wine from his glass. Only several moments later Billie returned with something under her arm, swept aside the mess of tarot cards on the table from the few games of Nancy they’d played, and dropped the roll of canvas before the old man. 

“Oh no,” sighed Daud quietly and Corvo could burst into laughter right then.

Billie was practically beaming as Sokolov raised an eyebrow, set the glass down on the table and began to unroll the painting. “Consider this an early birthday present,” she said, smugness clear as crystal in her voice.

“I shall not. My birthday is months away,” Sokolov countered, though the grump in his expression was overshadowed almost immediately as his face lit up in a smile of incredulous delight. _“Oh!”_

Daud was slowly rubbing his eyes and generally pretending to not be here. Corvo took a sip of his brandy just to stifle the string of chuckles that threatened to tear out of his throat.

“Where did you get this beauty?” Sokolov dragged out in wonder. “I haven’t seen it in ages, ever since that auction, it was such a pity to give it away—” he suddenly clicked his tongue. “Oh, Meagan, just who in the world taught you to cut the canvas like that? What a disgrace, all these torn edges… Tsk, you almost nicked my signature right there—”

Billie rolled her eye. “The mug itself is whole, isn’t it? That’s what’s important. Now—I brought you the painting, now tell us all about it.”

“Hey,” Daud interjected, “that’s not fair, you got him drunk on purpose.”

“That’s more entertaining!”

Sokolov just sat, leaning back, examining the portrait with a slight squint. “Yes, I always did like how the value structure turned out in this one, works wonderfully with the muted palette…”

“Okay, enough of your fancy art terms bullshit,” Billie gave a lopsided anticipatory grin, her taut mannerisms loosened slightly by the alcohol. “What’s the story here?”

“Oh, it was quite a joy to paint—”

“If you’ll excuse me—” Daud made a move to stand up from his chair but Billie pulled him back down by his sleeve and even refilled his glass.

“Go on, Anton,” she prompted. 

“Well, you see, Daud was one of my best students—”

“Ugh. Old news.”

“—not to mention simply a delight to look at—”

Corvo choked on his drink.

“O-okay,” Billie breathed out so lengthily it was almost a whistle. “Slow down right there.”

“What? Yes, he had a wonderful facial bone structure. Still does, obviously.” Sokolov took a sip from his glass and flitted his eyes to Daud. “Don’t look at me like that, you absolutely do.”

Daud looked unamused, to say the least. “Do you value your life at all?”

“…The very definition of ‘aesthetically pleasing.’ You see, many artists’ tastes are very conventional, so much so that the so-called ‘ideal’ constituting a long chiseled nose and cheekbones high as a tower and so sharp they can cut you becomes dreadfully boring. This man’s facial proportions, though,” Sokolov pointed with his knobbly finger, “are entirely something else.”

Sure, perhaps Daud didn’t have the cheekbones that could cut, but Corvo thought that his glare was perfectly capable. It amused him to no end.

“And the brow. It forms a stunning profile silhouette—”

“But you didn’t paint him from the profile, though,” Billie challenged as her own eyebrows crawled higher and higher up her forehead.

“Oh, no, I did. Well— sketched, to be more precise. Oh yes, I had many sketches.”

_“Where?”_

“Dearie, it was a long time ago, don’t ask me.”

This was getting better by the minute. Corvo was completely content to sit back and observe, and, so far, the spectacle didn’t disappoint. At this point Sokolov needed little prompting as his tongue began unraveling more and more.

“…In fact, good models were very difficult to come by, back in the day. Still are, I imagine. You really had to look to find someone with the right face who didn’t bend over backwards to get their portrait painted and then made a huge deal out of it. When you have to work with that kind of attitude, the portrait becomes… tense, unnatural. Artificial. I’d say that Daud’s reluctance was a benefit, made the experience somehow refreshing. Of course, I’m not saying that he agreed out of the goodness of his heart, I had to lure him in with a bribe or two... But I’m sure that all those stimulating discussions we had on speculative paraneuroscience helped— Daud, I’m sure that deep down you were glad to grant me this favor, you must have felt somewhat indebted to me after all those lessons, no?”

“Not in the least,” the man leaned back in his chair and replied, arms crossed and eyebrow sharply raised.

“Oh, come now—admit it, you enjoyed those talks quite a bit. I recall you having no trouble frequently coming over when I’d invite you for tea.”

“You mean for booze.”

“Yes.”

Daud clicked his tongue and shook his head in a sort of amused deprecation. “Right. That King Street Brandy of yours? Tasted like rat piss.”

“Ah. You still remember what it was called.”

“Yeah, well, my survival instincts kind of forced me to, in case there was a chance of my ever coming across it again.”

It was Sokolov’s turn to shake his head, then he shook his index finger like he was trying to make a point. “See, you were such a bright young man; back then I was hoping you’d have a taste for the finer things in life. I can’t believe you disappointed me like that. I am still, to this day, deeply wounded.”

“Good.”

“What a pity… That liquor is an acquired taste! And you would have understood that if only you made use of the potential I saw in you and put forth just a thread of patience—”

“No, thank you.”

Sokolov clicked his tongue several times in rapid succession and shook his head once again. “Ai yai yai, Daud. You haven’t changed.”

Daud flashed him a sarcastically sweet smile. “I’m sure that’s for the better.”

It was such a pleasant feeling, all the food, drink, and banter coming together into one whole experience that flowed through Corvo like warm honey. Maybe it was the feeling that they could finally move on to the final stage of their plan, maybe it was the cathartic completeness of their matters in Karnaca, maybe it was simply the company— Corvo thought it was probably all of those combined that created such an atmosphere. In fact, it’s been a long time since he’s last felt so at ease and thrown into the moment and, frankly, he didn’t want this sensation to end.

After some time the night deepened, the flurry calmed down, and Corvo found himself sitting on the roof of the _Dreadful Wale’s_ bridge, wrapped in a blanket to shield himself from the chilly wind as he looked at the lights on his homeland’s shores for the last time before they took off toward Gristol in the morning.

When he arrived in Karnaca, Corvo didn’t plan on being sentimental. He couldn’t help it now, however—even allowed himself to embrace it while he had the chance to relax and not feel guilty about it, since they’d soon be full speed at sea and there’d be simply no point in trying to figure out whether they had done enough.

A couple of seagulls landed on the top of the mast, letting out occasional soft quacks, and Corvo closed his eyes and breathed deeply the salty chilly air.

He wasn’t sure whether the heightened senses granted to him by the Outsider were at work, or if he was unconsciously waiting (or even hoping) for Daud to appear (though he preferred to think that the latter wasn’t actually the case), but he nonetheless very quickly picked up the man’s presence when he came out onto the deck. Corvo snuck a quick glance down and over his shoulder, and saw that Daud saw _him_ right away, which wasn’t a surprise. 

Maybe he’s been looking for him.

A moment longer, and Corvo’s eyes stung with a strong puff of cold air as Daud materialized beside him, and he felt the boat’s ever-so-slight swaying with the barest imbalance of weight at its top.

“That as high as you can climb?” Daud jabbed, and Corvo puffed out a breathy chuckle. The breath felt warm amidst the chilly air. “You want to pretend to be a bird, you should be perched up on that mast instead.”

“No, thank you, I’m quite content right here.”

Daud must have found the reply satisfactory and soon sat down next to him. They sat in silence for a time, Corvo kept wondering when Daud would reach for a cigarette—but he didn’t. 

Corvo was glad for the company, he decided. Although, he supposed, it’s been quite some time since his not being glad for Daud’s company, and, frankly, it was a strange feeling.

But it also felt right.

Another puff of wind tugged at him, summoning sleeves of goosebumps along his arms, and he shivered.

And then once more when the cold fell into contrast with the warmth that Daud radiated. They must have been sitting closer together than he thought for him to be able to feel it so acutely. 

Daud was looking ahead of him, also watching the lights in the distance, and it was enough to sneak just one glance at him to catch those lights reflected in his eyes, just a bit. Like sound, light must have been carrying over water. Corvo thought it fascinating.

The man’s presence brought unwarranted musings, however, and Billie’s admonition from earlier in the day was the last thing he wished to think about. So he made himself focus on the shores again, and it must have worked because he soon felt himself slipping back into the warm ease of nostalgia.

When his thoughts manifested into quietly spoken words without his intent, Corvo resolved to just go with it.

“I miss it.”

Daud gave him a sidelong glance, then flicked his eyes back to the specks of light in the distance.

“Karnaca?” he clarified.

Corvo just nodded. 

“Not… now,” he went on after a beat. “Back when I lived here. It had its problems, of course.” But it was perfect. “But it was home. I think… part of me always hoped it would stay that way, this bustling little corner on the edge of the world.”

“It’s changed.”

“Yeah.”

Everything’s changed.

“You remember that teenage wish to leave and go somewhere far away from home, that illusion of you having no emotional ties to the place you grew up in?” Corvo continued and felt a scoff forming in the back of his throat. He felt oddly relaxed in this casual pensiveness. “Everyone probably goes through that phase at some point. I know I did. I was pretentious and headstrong like most boys on the streets who yearned for adventure and independence, taking it all terribly for granted. And the worst part? I knew I was and I kept doing it anyway.”

At that, Daud breathed out a chuckle. “It’s okay. You were young and stupid.”

“Heh. And you weren’t?”

“Oh, no, I was.”

Despite the words, Daud’s tone clearly said he wasn’t going to speak of the past. Corvo wouldn’t push—there was no need to. 

It wasn’t at all difficult to believe that they both had to leave something behind in Serkonos, willingly or not. It didn’t much matter how they got here.

And maybe, just maybe, they indeed didn’t have to think or speak of the past, just for a bit. Just for the moment. Corvo quite liked the idea.

All of a sudden, he didn’t have much to say. But the silence wasn’t pressing, it felt companionable, it wrapped around them like a blanket and Corvo pulled his own tighter around himself as he shivered again in a new puff of wind.

When, after some amount of time that he couldn't tell the length of, he caught himself stealing glances at Daud, he snickered internally at himself.

Not young any longer, sure—but still very much stupid.

He didn’t mind. It was late and his eyelids were getting heavier and his mind, also, was getting heavy and mellow and maybe that was why he couldn’t physically bring himself to feel any sort of tension or stress at these urges of his subconscious.

He must have been still looking at Daud without really thinking about it because the other finally looked back, as though he’s been resisting it this whole time and finally gave up. Daud raised a questioning eyebrow— _go on, say your piece._ And Corvo suddenly wanted to laugh, probably in incredulity at the ridiculousness of it all, because only one thing came to his mind right then. 

When he realized he was shamelessly staring into Daud’s eyes Corvo looked away, just for decency’s sake. The same thought spiraled in his mind, unyielding and uncompromising, now accompanied by an insistent tugging in his chest that also tugged at the corner of his lips and he had to press them together to will down the unwarranted smile.

It was ridiculous. And yet it felt so right. It was probably the worst possible time for impulsive decisions, maybe he’d regret it later, maybe he wouldn’t, but the fact remained that he could do pretty little about holding in what was threatening to spill out on its own anyway.

And so he indulged. Because the moment allowed it. Because why not.

“I care for you, Daud.”

And it was the strangest thing how, when the words formed on his tongue, they became a rock-solid fact. A tangible truth.

Perhaps that was why it was so easy to say.

Corvo just kept staring ahead, looking blankly at the lights in the distance, partly lost in the gentle emptiness of his thoughts. 

He realized that he hasn’t been even expecting an answer, when, after a few long moments, Daud let out a heavy sigh and uttered,

“You shouldn’t.”

And Corvo finally allowed himself to break into a full-on smile because in Daud’s voice he heard… tired resignation and yet this peculiar stubbornness, like he was saying the words not because he meant them, but just because he thought he had to.

Corvo was getting the feeling that that thin shell of his could be cracked with a slight nudge.

“Maybe,” he agreed, the word coming breathy like a chuckle in itself. Once again he turned his head and he could so clearly see how Daud was trying and ultimately failing to hold his guard under the casual insistency of his gaze. “But I guess that’s just too bad.”

At that, Daud let loose a chuckle of his own that sounded incredibly bittersweet, and rubbed his eyes. Corvo didn’t think, just let impulse guide him as he unwrapped himself halfway out of his blanket and draped the freed half of it over Daud’s shoulders, shifting closer to him in the process. And this pool of shared warmth between them was so impossibly inviting that Corvo submerged himself in it in full without a second thought.

The exposed skin of their faces was cold in the night air, but Corvo’s lips burned when he pressed them to Daud’s temple. Daud’s breath hitched in his throat, or maybe it was his own, he couldn’t tell—he only knew that, as he felt Daud’s pulse through his skin, he utterly failed to hold still his own breathing and it quickened inadvertently instead. 

Corvo could have sworn it wasn’t just a trick of his imagination when Daud leaned into the touch, ever so slightly but still enough for Corvo’s breath to undeniably catch in his throat.

After a long moment, Daud breathed a laborious sigh. He swallowed, his voice came hoarse and low.

“You’re unrelenting, you know that?”

Maybe he shifted then, or maybe Corvo did, he didn’t know—or chose to pretend he didn’t, anyway—but his lips ended up somewhere near Daud’s, just at the corner of his mouth, at his cheek, if anything— It was ridiculous, Corvo thought, how furiously and unabashedly his heart pounded in comparison with the near painful slowness of their movements. 

With his eyes half-lidded, with his lips prickling ever so slightly amidst the meeting of his own beard and the roughness of Daud’s cheek glazed by a day length's stubble, Corvo felt the whisper of his reply more than he heard it.

“I am?”

And then Daud turned his head just so, it must have been intentional, because out of Corvo’s chest tore out a sigh so heavy he felt lightheaded for a second afterwards.

 _Void,_ he thought with the last tatters of reason this moment has left him with, he hasn't kissed in ages— but they went so slow, so utterly unhurried like they had all the time in the world, that any and all insecurities and doubts volatilized in an instant as if they were never there at all.

Daud’s mouth on his felt like coming up for air after staying underwater for too long.

Daud’s hand that came to rest against his cheek, his thumb gently brushing his cheekbone as he was pulled further into the kiss, felt like belonging.

It felt right.

And Corvo couldn’t bring himself to think, or care, about anything else.

It didn’t last nearly long enough, but it was aright to break away if they stayed like that for a time afterwards, close together, feeling warm moist breath bouncing back against skin. Another sigh flowed out and Corvo didn’t bother to open his eyes—felt no need to do so.

When Daud broke the silence after a minute, Corvo gleaned hints of uncertainty and tremor in his whispering voice, and he wanted to kiss them away.

“Corvo.” 

“Hm?”

A long pause, full of uneasiness that Corvo loathed to hear, feel in his bones. 

“Where do you see this going?”

_No._

_Not now._

Corvo sucked in a quiet breath and shifted to lean his head more or less against Daud’s shoulder. 

Closer.

“We don’t—” he sighed once again and focused on the rhythm of Daud’s breathing to try to get his thoughts in order. His words were hoarse. “We don’t have to figure that out now, hm?”

_Please._

A long moment later, Daud’s sigh was that of gentle resignation. It was enough, for now, and Corvo was thankful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look I have nothing to say right now I'm just
> 
> *lies down*
> 
> oh god


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nervous laughter

       _Я несла свою беду_

  
   

   

Corvo’s breathing was warm and moist against his neck.

_Where do you see this going?_

Corvo’s head was a pleasant weight on his shoulder.

_We don’t have to figure that out now._

Corvo’s warmth was so enveloping Daud didn’t know where one of them ended and the other began.

He still tasted the brandy Corvo had drank on his lips.

His lips still burned and pleasantly tingled from the kiss.

His hand felt horribly empty and cold in the absence of contact with Corvo’s skin.

He wanted to bring it back. He wanted to pull Corvo even closer than he already was and take his face in his hands and kiss and kiss him again until all else was forgotten. Corvo wouldn’t even mind. It would be so easy.

He didn’t move a muscle.

If anything, he was frozen.

_Where do you see this going?_

The question kept twisting and turning in his mind, coiling unto itself and thrashing and growing, hunting down and tearing apart all the other thoughts in its way with each passing, increasingly torturous minute.

_Where do you see this going?_

After what felt like hours, his conscience began mimicking the manner that the Outsider might take on whenever he appeared especially condescending.

_Oh, Daud, just where can you possibly see this going?_

With all the mental effort focused on not letting himself curl into Corvo's side and stay like that for as long as they could, with barely any to spare for anything else, it’s gotten hard to breathe. 

Yes, it was clear as day—it was blinding, really, like the worst of the Serkonan sunlight—that he wanted this, that his whole being was crying out for it. No point in unsuccessfully trying to lie to himself. It was clear as day that he, too, wanted to get lost in this momentary carelessness that Corvo seemed to embrace with such reckless ease.

_But, Daud, it doesn’t work like that._

_Not for you._

More minutes passed, maybe closer to a quarter of an hour, and Daud still couldn’t take a single deep breath for the weight in his chest that tied around his lungs in thick ropes. He resorted to quiet shallow breathing, slow and yet somehow feverish, as if those small intakes of air one after another could ever help him resolve anything.

Daud has never had any problems with leaving. Ever since he was plucked out of his home and was forced to leave everything behind, just like that—ever since they made the choice of the hardest departure for him—all the others after that couldn’t have come easier. He could have went back home. Right after they had let their guard down and paid for that with their dying breaths and the coin pouches that Daud swept up from their belts, he could have went and paid for a bench on the next boat to Serkonos. 

Even at sixteen, it looked like, he’d known that was pointless. 

Leaving his abductors to choke on their blood, leaving one place of work after another, leaving lovers he'd cater to when they'd called him to their beds, leaving the Academy, leaving the Whalers and Dunwall, leaving. It made everything easy. It was easy.

So why couldn’t he move?

Just another trick of the mind, he told himself. Just another psychological block, easy to break through once acknowledged.

With the same leaden weight on his chest, Daud forced his limbs into work and unwound himself from Corvo and the blanket—calmly, smoothly, there wasn’t ever any need for theatrics—stood up and blinked down onto the deck, without a word, without a glance, just to prove to himself that he could.

Corvo didn’t stop him.

He also didn’t follow after him. The boat was large, but not nearly large enough. Daud put as much distance between them as he possibly could, blinked all the way to the edge where beyond was only water.

A few minutes later, he looked; Corvo was gone from the bridge roof. 

Daud exhaled his relief, as much as he was able.

Thankfully, without the feeling of the man’s body next to his, it was much easier to think. 

Much easier to slip into the familiar, comforting hardness of reasoning.

How did this happen?

Where did they go wrong?

How did he manage to lose himself like that? Since when? Daud backtracked in his thoughts, retraced his steps in his mind, coldly, analytically went through every detail he could remember—and an assassin’s memory was quite good.

It began after the Conservatory. It began when Daud let down his guard, when he loosened the collar around his neck, when he let himself be pulled into Corvo’s space more than strictly, absolutely necessary. 

Cold slithered down his back like a snake scouting out a place to strike.

What gave you the right, Daud?

His spine froze and he thought it could snap in half like an icicle under the weight of his thoughts.

How dare you?

What gave you the right to forget who you are?

What gave you the right to forget your place?

Oh, this entire enterprise was so fucking convenient, wasn’t it. A nice little distraction, a coverup, a pretense of helping a cause and making up for his wrongs. A nice little diversion from the simple, painful truths—you killed so many, Daud. You killed her. You broke the Empire. You broke him. You broke yourself.

As if there was much to be broken there, in the first place.

Why are you here, Daud? Why are you still here?

Answer me one thing, Daud—what gave you the right to anything good in this life, after all you’ve done?

Nothing. 

Then why are you still here? How did this happen? 

Because he needed it.

Bullshit. Corvo doesn’t need this.

No one should need this. 

He doesn’t need you.

He cannot, must not, need you.

Wake up.

Wake the fuck up.

_Where do you see this going?_

Nowhere. 

Only downwards.

Then why are you still here?

Leave. 

_Leave._

His body whipped around. His eyes locked onto the target. Two flashes, and his legs stepped into the skiff, his hands pulled the hawser, untied the knot, grabbed the lever used to lower the skiff to the water.

As if from a sleepwalk Daud tore awake with a gasp, tore his hand away from the lever like it burned him, stumbled back until the back of his legs hit the seat and he slumped down into it, burying his face in his hands while his abdomen constricted impossibly tightly in a silent scream.

Then he laughed, pained and hysterical and utterly atrocious because the laughter was, also, dead silent, since that weight on his chest kept squeezing and could never be lifted and so it was as though there wasn’t any point in trying.

He shook all the way through, his palms dug into his face, and he laughed and laughed at just how unhinged he was.

_Fuck’s sake, just how old are you? Get a fucking grip on yourself._

Cursed boat—it was a trap. He was trapped. Only ocean for miles all around, only one skiff that would be lost if he left without telling anyone and never returned. No, he wouldn’t be this heedless. He wouldn’t do that to Billie.

He should have walked away when he had the chance, shouldn’t have stuck around for nothing. Corvo and Billie could manage on their own going forward, there was no doubt—fuck’s sake, they were capable of managing on their own from the very start. They didn’t need him. Not then, not now, not anymore.

Somehow, everyone seemed to have forgotten about that. Especially himself.

Daud would never forgive himself for that. Oh, he scoffed grimly, as if he’s ever forgiven himself for anything.

And yet—if leaving was so easy, then why did the mere thought of it now knock all air out of his lungs?

Another laugh tore through his throat, almost painful with how parched it was. Pathetic. Fucking ridiculous. What an overreaction, completely blown out of proportion.

Since when did a kiss and intuitive promise of intimacy leave him so crazed? When was the last time he actually felt something for whomever shared his bed and told him they cared? When was the last time he actually cared in return, hasn't gotten up and walked away?

Daud had a good memory, and yet he couldn’t remember.

Another painful jolt of laughter in his chest. Marvelous, wasn’t it, just fucking poetic. The Empress being different he could understand, but he never expected her Lord Protector to be in the same boat. 

A whole fucking family of outliers. At this point, Daud thought he wouldn't be surprised if he’d get tangled somehow with the daughter to boot.

Cursed bloodline. It was only fair—he broke them and they’d break him in return.

But only if he let them.

Tangible, vivid sensational memories flooded his mind on their own will, of Corvo pressing against him like his life depended on it, of his willing responsiveness to all those small moments of tenderness that Daud let traitorously slip. The memories caught him so off guard, felt so real he shuddered feverishly in spite of himself. What pushed him to reach out beyond necessary collaboration? What pushed him to act like he was more than a means to an end? The answer was making his head spin—he did because Corvo seemed to need it. Because Daud himself needed it. 

Oh, he so wished he didn’t. He so wished to tell himself that wasn’t true.

_You don’t need me, Corvo. You don’t know what you’re doing._

_I don’t know what I’m doing._

Attachments ruined men. Daud never thought he’d ever be getting a taste of that personally. 

The next gulp of air sliced deep into his flesh and right down to the bone and he sent his hands into his hair, gripping and pulling at the root as if in some desperate, useless attempt at a punishment. Then his hands slipped back down and he pressed, jammed his thumbs into his eyes until specks of color and pain burned and pulsed on the back of his lids.

He noticed later than he should have how the wind around him vanished in an instant and everything stilled to a dead silence.

“You’re cornered.”

Daud raised his sore, burning eyes to the Outsider. The god sat on the opposite end of the skiff, the skiff sat on the smooth black mirror surface of the ocean. Nothing else, only endless empty space and the glassy waters stretching as far as the eye could see.

Just how fucked up did he get, to warrant a personal visit from the Void without use of a shrine for the first time in years?

“Stuck. Like a rat in a trap.”

It was peeving. It was always peeving Daud whenever the Outsider would come to mock him in his own strange way—flat emotionless tone, any and all meaning held only in the words. As a general rule, words meant nothing without the intonation linked to them, only, the Outsider was far from human. Rules were of no matter to him. His lack of intonation only brought out his interlocutor’s interpretations of it, stirred up and brought to the surface the self-hatred and disappointment and contempt buried within that was then used to dress up the empty words as though they were dolls. The god’s monologues were mirrors, of sorts, in that way. Daud wondered whether he spoke in the same way with others, with Corvo.

He closed his eyes back up and breathed a sigh. 

“Say something I don’t already know, please, for once in my life.” 

“This is a first for you.”

“It shouldn’t have happened.”

“And you know not what to do.”

Daud cackled suddenly—it was almost genuinely funny. “Oh, and you’re here to tell me what to do, is that it?”

The Outsider looked out onto the water, his gaze idle and bored. “Not necessarily.”

 _If you’ve come to mock me,_ Daud almost said, _then just get on with it._ But he didn’t have any energy to spare on empty back talk. The Outsider’s very presence was mocking in itself, there wasn’t much to say about that. 

“Will you find an escape, I wonder?” the god mused. 

Daud looked at him blankly. “Is there one?” 

“I can’t say, Daud, I’m merely an observer. You’re so used to having experience with everything, and you’ve never gotten into such a predicament before. Even if there is a way out, would you manage to spot it?”

A weak, half-hearted snort. “You make it sound like a life-or-death situation.”

“Is that not how you’re treating it?”

Daud only rubbed his eyes, suddenly feeling incredibly tired. “Fuck knows how I’m treating it.” Well, now that he was already in the Void as it was, he might as well try to formulate his thoughts out loud instead of continuing to let them erode him from the inside. “I only know that none of this should have happened.”

The Outsider tilted his head slightly to the side in all his pensive, oddly regal glory. “And whom would that have served? Corvo? Or you?”

Both, Daud wanted to say. It would be better for both, _all_ of them, he wanted to say, but his tongue wouldn’t turn. 

“How can you be so sure of his needs if you have no clue about your own?”

Daud tensed, not looking the Outsider in the eye. Anywhere but at him. 

“Make no mistake, I’m only genuinely curious.”

“I don’t know,” barely hearing his own voice, Daud rasped, mostly to fixate and stabilize the thought in his own mind. He didn’t know anything. He just felt lost.

Moments passed, minutes, it seemed, hours— the Void never did supply its patrons with a fixed sense of time. And Daud just kept staring at the floor of the skiff, his head in his hands as if it would fall off his shoulders without anything to support it. He kept staring at the floor of the skiff with nothing but wind in his head and the Outsider kept staring at him in his endless observational scrutiny. 

“I wonder,” the god finally gave voice, “what he sees in you.”

An arduous sigh pushed its way out of Daud’s chest. 

He’d like to know, as well.

“What a sad creature you are, Daud. Perhaps whatever Corvo has for you is a gift, of sorts—and while you’re so desperately trying to push it away, you can’t let go. Seems a bit rude, don’t you think?”

Void. This shouldn’t be this difficult. Daud hated it, hated it like nothing else.

A dry lump stood in his throat, scraping it, making it painful to speak. All he could manage was a hoarse, breathless whisper. 

“Corvo deserves better than me.”

So much better.

A long pause followed, as if this claim was up for fucking debate.

“Perhaps,” the Outsider finally said. It sounded an awful lot like a yes. “But the world isn’t fair in that way, is it?”

Oh, the world was the opposite of fair. That didn’t mean they had to just roll over and take without question every little thing thrown at them.

“Your past is killing you, Daud. Twisting your legs. Snapping your bones. Crushing your lungs. It’s a pity.”

 _Leave,_ Daud almost snapped, by this point plenty exasperated with these convoluted metaphors that did nothing but rile him up. _Just fucking leave and let me wither on my own, without your help._

“…It’s a pity that you’re letting it.”

Daud sighed, rubbed his eyes while he absently shook his head. Spoke in that same hoarse voice, so low it could only really be meant for himself. “Get out.”

“All these years of suffering over ghosts. I suppose it makes sense that what breaks you completely would be the living.”

His voice grew firmer, louder. “Get out.”

“How sweet the home of pain...”

His breathing deepened, quickened, grew ragged and jerky as the Outsider continued taunting. Daud didn’t bother to care that he was taking the bait without a second thought, like a dumb, desperate fish that he was.

“How sweet the comfort of self-loathing...”

His gums almost hurt with how hard he ground his teeth together. ”Get. Out.”

“So brittle like a thin dead tree, snapping in half at the barest wind of anything other than hatred coming from others; comforting, familiar hatred—” 

“...I said, _get out of my head, you motherfucking cunt—”_

Oh, how good it felt, after all these long, torturous years, to finally spring up and throw himself at the bastard, just snap his thin pale neck and be done with it, done with the suffering, done with the perpetrator of all the pain and sickness and death, done with the one that no doubt orchestrated everything in the first place and just watched as he laughed to himself, laughed and laughed and laughed—

Daud barely managed to catch himself in time and grip the railing on the opposite end of the skiff to keep himself from losing his balance and tumbling overboard.

Of course, the black-eyed bastard was gone—his physical form was, at least; the Void remained and so did its sovereign, in the space all around, in the silence, in the dead air.

Daud’s never been able to make the Outsider disappear like that before.

His pulse hammered in his head, he was breathing tattered jerks of air while still staring into the water so black it showed nothing in its depths. Only the surface was visible, it did nothing but reflect.

Daud wondered then, if this water was even real. If it was possible to drown in it.

He sighed, sucked in a sharp breath through his nose and stepped back to the middle of the skiff that rocked under the shifting weight. 

“Bring me back,” he said, his tone void of energy and focus. “You don’t want me here. Don’t think I can’t feel it.”

 _Maybe I ought to just keep you here,_ he imagined the Outsider’s reply, and then snorted to himself. The god didn’t care—was above being petty, holding puny grudges of mortals, exerting punishments.

The Void did not respond, only expressed its distaste in the way it warped and curled in on itself like a scroll, pushing Daud out into the skiff still docked at the _Dreadful Wale’s_ side. He was still sitting the same way he did before the Void took him, hunched over, face in his hands, eyes clenched tight. He pushed out a heavy sigh and rubbed his face. 

He was exhausted. Utterly, completely mentally drained—so much so that when the night’s burning question slipped into his mind again like a timid but jealous mistress he could do nothing but breathe another sigh of defeat. 

_Where do you see all of this going?_

_You don’t have to figure it out now._

But then, when? When?

Rubbing his face again, with no energy for anything else, Daud let out out a spent, dead breath of a shuddering chuckle.

This was fucked.

He was fucked.

He didn’t know what he needed or wanted. It was disgusting.

…No, no, no. He knew.

He wanted Corvo with him. He absolutely hated the fact that he did.

He was so fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wasn’t sure at first if I wanted to take the cliche “one step forward two steps back” (can you call this two steps back though?...hmmmm) route but I honestly can’t see this happening any other way. Corvo got his turn to process his own shit, Daud only repressed his. He can’t move forward like that. _They_ can’t move forward like that.
> 
> Someone get these two to fucking talk
> 
>  
> 
> Epigraph/inspiration —> https://youtu.be/62TAe2m7Wt4  
> Could potentially be translated as “I carried my misfortune”


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back I'm back
> 
> No one is having a nice time right now
> 
> ...except maybe Sokolov. He’s just sleeping. God I wish that were me

Even after some time, Daud didn’t return to his cabin. The pulses of Dark Vision couldn’t reach him—he must have stayed on deck. Maybe on the bridge.

That was alright. Corvo could understand. Daud probably wanted some space, as evident by his abrupt leave, even though Corvo couldn’t quite make sense of it. It wasn’t in any way harsh, or cold, or especially distant. A little strange, perhaps, but due to the way Daud at first grew concerned with the ultimate outcome of this… development… of theirs, Corvo found the reaction to be somewhat appropriate and understandable.

Even if, in the moment, it was a tad disappointing.

Just a tad frustrating.

That didn’t matter much, these small visceral emotions weren’t significant in the face of the entire situation, they weren’t something he could control. They were only natural, as was Daud’s reaction. Corvo could understand. 

Maybe it was all just moving too fast. Maybe Daud was caught off guard.

That didn’t seem to be the case, however, when he kissed Corvo like he meant it.

That was a bit of a surprise in itself, really—Corvo hasn’t been expecting any real response to his statement that felt a bit sudden even to himself. He didn’t regret saying it, though, not in the least. It was the truth. He felt it. It had felt appropriate to voice it.

Where that would bring them, well... That was a question for another time. 

Content with the current peace of his mind, Corvo shifted in his bed into a more comfortable position and relaxed his muscles into the descent of drowsiness.

*

A quarter or two of an hour later, he found himself on his side and looking through the Void as though the temporary owner of the bunk in the neighboring cabin would appear out of thin air at any given moment. 

Of course, he didn’t.

Corvo kept looking.

It was not a productive use of his time. He huffed out a sharp breath, turned around to face the wall of his own cabin and clenched his eyes shut as if sleep would come faster that way.

*

It didn’t, and Corvo grew irritated. 

Perhaps that was too strong of a word for it, because that “irritation” was more of a simple restlessness, somewhat tinged with uneasiness. What was actually irritating, however, was the nagging urge in the back of his skull to turn around and peek through the Void like it would change a damn thing.

It was annoying. Like a tic.

Corvo succeeded in resisting it for a good portion of an hour. He gave up after that, when the tension in his brain grew and seemed to only be bound to get worse. So he turned around once again, let the world get washed over with dull translucent orange and stared at the cot in Daud’s cabin. Blankly, almost unseeing.

All he knew for sure was that he missed that bright, warm, visible echo that stood out from other people’s with its sheer intensity, one that Corvo has grown so used to.

Did Daud see his in a similar way?

Corvo shifted again. The cot was, after all, as uncomfortable as they came. 

He decided that was why he couldn’t sleep. Not because of this anxious restlessness he felt for seemingly no reason, not because—

Not because it was still difficult to simply _be_ here, in this cabin, no matter what he told himself. Not because he still felt the hollow loneliness seeping into his bones at the first opportunity as soon as he let his guard down. He should have expected it, of course. He should have known what he was getting into, should have remembered how, after having returned with Emily to Dunwall Tower, he’d avoided Jessamine’s room like the plague for months out of the slightest risk of losing himself to the grief he’d taken such great care to lock away. 

The absence of her spirit nearby—the knowledge that she wasn’t there at all, be it nearby or far away—was distressing. Being alone in this tiny, cramped room, felt defenseless. Discomforting.

Like he was being watched, even.

Perhaps the soft yet steady pulse he could hear if he concentrated well enough, that he could feel against his own will when there was nothing occupying his thoughts to the full degree, was at fault.

So familiar, and yet so incredibly alien. Unsettling. 

It snaked into his mind now, entwined with his thoughts, and Corvo wanted nothing but to reach inside and pull it out.

Perhaps sharing the same small space with the Heart when the wound was still sore was not the wisest decision.

It beat from its spot on the opposite side of the room, it beat inside his temples, it beat and it beat and it beat.

Corvo could easily compare it to an irksome buzzing of a fly that couldn’t get out of the room. 

He did not at all appreciate having this fly lodged in his brain.

He could leave, sure. Go to the couch in the briefing room instead. The slight distance should do the trick in silencing this annoyance, at least for the time he needed to sleep. 

He stayed where he was, however, because he knew he couldn’t keep running. He had to step over the loneliness that Jessamine’s absence has left him with, had to repress and swallow the bitterness that Delilah’s presence brought in her place. How could he hope to face the witch if he could barely handle this piece of her that fit in the palm of his hand?

Giving in, just for a moment, to a new urge to peek through the Void, Corvo then turned onto his back and employed the best thought-numbing techniques he knew.

When the Heart spoke after a time, however, he couldn’t be sure any longer whether he was actually succeeding in blocking out its pulse or if it has quieted down on purpose in order to lull him into a false sense of security. Indulge him. Mock him.

_“Poor old man.”_

Corvo had to give his all to not grimace in disgust at how close and nastily intimate Delilah’s voice seemed. As though she was lying right next to him, her lips ghosting against the shell of his ear and sending shudders down his spine with a whisper akin to soft rustling of leaves.

He was tempted to swear to himself to round up and execute every single witch in the city after everything was over and done with.

_“Lost it all.”_

Void, Corvo thought then, this was bound to be a long night if the bitch was planning on grinding his gears until the moment he gave in and snapped. No, he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. He could be patient.

Interestingly enough, the Heart said nothing else. The thudding of its pulse faded away, dissolved into the background, and after a good twenty or so minutes of skeptical expectancy and silence Corvo allowed himself to relax with tentative care. Once more he let the Void glaze over his vision and, with the final confirmation that the neighboring cabin was just as empty as it was in the previous several times that he’d checked, he released the tingles of tension throughout his body in the form of a long sigh and closed his eyes.

When the familiar, momentary sensation of free fall overtook him, he was suddenly pulled with a jerk from his descent into sleep.

_“She gave you her heart.”_

Corvo’s eyes flew open at once and he hissed loudly at the unexpectedness of the low, noxious voice that crawled back into his skull through the cracks in his consciousness like some sort of bug.

_“And you threw it into the Void.”_

In his half-asleep state Corvo was ready to begin objecting with indignation, but caught himself in time. The Heart was merely seeking to pull a reaction out of him, he assured himself once more. It’d press all his buttons it could find just out of bitterness inherent to it, or maybe boredom—he didn’t know whether it could feel boredom at all, but he could certainly see it as a possibility.

_“She must be suffering there, now. Poor thing.”_

The last two words were said with such spiteful condescension it sounded like the prospect brought the Heart joy. Nonetheless, Corvo stilled in apprehension.

_“How cruel you’ve been to her. Keeping her trapped in this prison of flesh for more than a decade… It must have seemed an eternity to her._

_“And now, the dead embrace of the Void. I can’t decide which is worse.”_

Corvo closed his eyes, sucked in a deep breath, and began counting to ten in his mind. 

The sequence of numbers was interrupted before he even got to seven.

_“Trapped. Doomed. Banished. Just as I once was.”_

_Lies,_ Corvo wished to growl but ground his teeth instead, as if keeping silent would somehow help to hide his subconscious from the Heart. Of course, he had no doubt the organ could hear his thoughts just fine. 

He regretted this single coherent thought the moment that the unwelcome presence in his mind grew and blossomed with sickly sweet conceit. 

_“Are they, now?”_

Corvo could almost see Delilah’s smug smile and it sickened him. He just sucked in another sharp breath, inwardly begging himself to not even dare think of any sort of reply.

_“The arrogance of the living. Believing only what they want to believe._

_“You’ve never even considered the more unpleasant possibility, did you? Of course not. Why would you, when you could so easily surround yourself with sweet, sweet lies of doing the right thing when you released her? You poor, delusional, naive old man.”_

Lies, Corvo forced to tell himself with more conviction than he actually felt. Lies, lies and provocation. Nothing more.

Perhaps the Heart felt his slowly emerging uneasiness, perhaps it simply went on without regard for anything. Corvo hoped it was the latter, though he supposed it didn’t matter much if the outcome was the same.

_“He with eyes black as polished onyx. He who pulls all the strings. You didn’t actually think she had a free will this whole time, did you? The lies he told in her sweet voice.”_

_No,_ slipped out of Corvo’s subconscious and he hated himself for taking the bait, but couldn’t help but think back to the doubts he’d had in the past, the times he questioned the genuineness of Jessamine’s essence, the times when he thought, just what if—

No.

No, no—the Heart merely got into his head, could probably read him like a book. None of what it said was true. Jessamine was at peace, he knew she was.

Did he?

“And what about you, then,” he decided to probe, tentatively, see what the Heart had to say if he challenged it, “are you saying you’re also being kept on a leash?”

 _“Only on yours,”_ it replied in a slightly sharper tone, then softened back to a rustling murmur. _“But only temporarily. Soon, you will reunite me with her, and it will be your undoing. Without me you cannot kill her. With me, she will tear you to bits.”_

“That can’t be right,” Corvo replied, purposefully keeping his voice level and trying to take control of the exchange to bring the Heart back on track while his lips tightened when her ghostly voice once again brushed his ear. “You just told me that the Heart is controlled by the Void.”

The response was an idle cackle. _“He and I are bound together. Don’t you remember what he told you?”_

“He lied,” Corvo tried, stilling his breath in careful suspense of the next reply.

 _“No, my dear, not in that moment,”_ the Heart said in a tone akin to that of explaining something to a child. _“He fears me. He fears what I can grow capable of—you can try to compare Jessamine and I all you like, but you will always know in your heart the sheer power of my will. You shall taste it before long—you’re moving towards it now, a little lamb to the slaughter._

_“All her life, Jessamine was a slave. A slave to the throne, to her people, to an assassin’s blade. In death, she is a slave to the Void. You have condemned her.”_

“Your breath is wasted on me,” Corvo said, refusing to acknowledge the unrest that grew in his mind, right beside the Heart’s presence that fed upon it like a parasite. 

Delilah had every reason to lie, had every reason to try to demoralize him. None of this could have been true. It just didn’t make sense—what was the alternative? How did the dead find peace, if not in the Void? Where else? Could they, at all, in the first place?

They must. All Jessamine’s spirit had told him was genuine, he knew. She’d yearned to leave, to be free, and he’d granted her wish.

Because that was what she’d wanted. 

He knew that was what she’d wanted. 

It was the truth.

It had to be.

The Heart seemed to ignore him, for now. _“And now, look at you. You threw her away like garbage, and what is left? What do you do in her absence, in this… freedom?”_ It was disgusting how the truth was getting warped to suit the points she was trying to make, it irked Corvo more than he thought it should. 

The next words were so sharp they could cut, Delilah’s voice soaked in sick, cruel amusement. Almost something like delighted disbelief. _“You consort with her murderer.”_

 _Ah._ Corvo couldn’t help a quiet chuckle at that, slowly ran his tongue over the top row of his teeth. “That’s low. Even for you.”

 _“Coming from you? How rich.”_ The amusement in the ghostly voice grew, the tone sharpened with some sort of enjoyment. It was sickening. _“I wonder… Just what would she think, if she saw you now?”_

Corvo resolved to go back to his silence. He cursed himself then—he shouldn’t have spurred her on, shouldn’t have given in to momentary stupidity of temptation. 

The Heart didn’t care, of course—its gears ground together like a wind-up toy’s, its voice rang ever louder with silent laughter. 

_“What a spit in her face. Who would have thought that the loving, honorable Corvo Attano was so deranged at his core?”_

Fucking Void. He shouldn’t have even made a peep.

But something forced the words out of him, all the same. Probably his growing irritation that made his blood simmer. This aggravation, this anger the Heart was pulling out of him—he had to admit, it felt good. “I simply cannot wrap my mind around just how fucking petty you are,” he gritted out.

The Heart cackled once again, now louder, somehow even more genuine. _“Just think about it. Are you that desperate? Is that what loneliness does to a man?”_

The simmer slowly drew to a boil, and the Heart kept and kept on talking while Corvo took minuscule solace in picturing burying his sword in Delilah’s gut, slowly, twisting the blade and savoring her every pained wheeze and gag.

_“Or do you get turned on by the killers of your loved ones? Perhaps, when you make us complete, she will make you watch as she kills your daughter. And then she will have you.”_

Void, this was impermissible.

“Just shut your fucking mouth.”

Not that there was one. No matter—Corvo would wait patiently until he got the chance to cut out her tongue with the very sword that would tear her right through afterwards. 

He wasn’t sure whether the growing craving of violence in his thoughts was genuine or merely summoned by the debauching influence of Delilah’s spirit, and, at the moment, he didn’t much care.

 _“Imagine the look on pretty little Emily’s face,”_ the voice thundered, hammered in his head like the Heart’s very pulse that would drive him mad, _“when she hears of your perversions, when it sinks in as the last thought in her mind before the blood pours out of her neck.”_

Too far. This has gone too far. 

“I will break your wrists first,” Corvo hissed, rising adrenaline quickening the breath and dimming the vision. “Then your legs. Twist them out of their sockets. You will feel your legacy crumbling with every bone I snap.”

Sharp, acrid laughter filled his ears like water and sent a violent shudder over his entire body. _“You thirst for blood. Such hot, delicious blood. We will so enjoy breaking you.”_

He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to hurt her so much it was killing him.

“Your life will be the last thing I take from you,” he growled, his voice little more than a barely audible breath but more than enough to express the quiet, boiling, increasingly uncontrolled malice that pulsed in his veins. 

_“You will be licking your daughter’s blood off our fingers.”_

His own blood hammered in his temples and washed his vision over with red when his feet barely had any time to touch the floor as he blinked to the opposite wall of the cabin, where the Heart thumped on a crate in a corner, buried under a crumpled spare shirt. The shirt was on the floor in an instant and his hand was wrapped around the organ, and for the first time in his life Corvo squeezed it in his steel grip, simultaneously digging it into the crate’s surface as if with the intention to crush. 

It brought him sick, delicious pleasure to do so. 

The thin wires and the metal rim of the glass window dug into his palm as the contraption beat helplessly against it, most likely leaving an imprint in his skin, and he leaned towards it, his lips hovering just above its rubbery surface. 

“You will know pain,” he whispered, slowly, savoring every word, “you never even imagined possible. And when I hurl you back into the Void it will be a mercy, and you will be thankful for it in your suffering for the rest of eternity.”

His breathing came ragged and feverish and his arm moved on its own when he flung the organ to let it slam against the wall with a dull metallic thud. 

Without regard for his sleeping neighbors, the door of the cabin was slammed open and then closed—Corvo barely heard it over the raging pulsing in his head. In the next several seconds he was in the galley, arms propped against the makeshift counter and breathing heavy as he tried to make himself calm down by sheer force of will.

After a minute he dragged his hands through his hair and tiredly rubbed his face, letting out a final shudder of a sigh. 

The small distance, surprisingly, was enough to loosen the Heart’s grip on his thoughts, helped to clear his mind somewhat, and only then did he realize just how uncompromisingly it messed with his head. 

He had to keep it away. Hide it. Lock it away as far as possible for the next two weeks. He’d go mad otherwise. 

The engine room. That was a good place to put it. 

With a curt nod to himself and another purposefully long sigh to facilitate calm, Corvo turned around to take a mug off a shelf and went to a water tank to fill it. He didn’t; after a moment of consideration he went back to the small pantry and grabbed the previously opened brandy, set the cup on the counter, uncorked the liquor. Another moment, and the cup was left forgotten, the throat was burned by a small fire straight from the bottle and Corvo grimaced in bitter pleasure, welcoming the painful blazing in his chest. 

*

As a general rule, whenever she could, Billie preferred to move out into the open waters early, even before first light. She only got a couple hours of sleep—around four in the morning she fired up the windlass and yawned soundly as it began spinning with a violent groan, slowly heaving up the anchor’s long chain from the seabed, bit by bit. Everyone on the ship should have been used to the noise by now and could probably sleep through it, even if the sound wasn’t muffled very well belowdecks. Billie leaned over the ship’s side, propping her spotlight on her shoulder and flashing it on the chain where it was being pulled out of the water. With the anchor’s securing monitored and finished, she displaced up to the bridge, then left the switched-off spotlight by the door after she entered the room and closed it behind her. 

Firing up the engines has long since become a comforting routine. The ship has providently been anchored facing south and now needed very little steering, just a bit more to the west, on its way out of Karnaca Bay. Billie leaned against the helm as the _Dreadful Wale_ groaned into wakening and set out on a yet another voyage to add to its long resume. 

This old boat must have seen so much. It just smelled of countless forgotten stories when Billie first stepped onto its deck all those years ago—it still did.

She stood a while at the bridge window, eyeing the compass occasionally, and, when she decided that the direction was accurately set (it would take a while to just get out of this bay), gave a couple of gentle pats on the steering gear control panel and turned around to head back down and get a few more hours of sleep.

She started and barely held in a surprised yelp when her eye landed on the cot by the stairs.

“Daud?…”

Daud was lying on his side, turned to the wall, fully dressed. He even had his boots on still. Billie furrowed her brow when she received no response and slightly raised her voice.

“Daud.”

At last, Daud showed a sign of life and shifted, slowly raised his head from where it lay on his folded arm and fixed his gaze on her. That was very generously put, actually—even in the dark Billie could see the cloudiness in his eyes that wasn’t anything like regular sleepiness.

She walked over to the door and flipped the switch that made the two small old lamps on both sides of the bridge room light up with yellow. Daud groaned crossly in the back of his throat and blinked, squinting and shielding his eyes. Billie frowned at that—the lights were very dim, not nearly enough to hurt anyone’s eyes, even after having spent a long time in the dark.

Now that she looked at him, she wasn’t sure he’s even slept. He looked pretty damn disheveled and utterly exhausted.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, not without concern.

Daud took another couple of seconds to stare at her blankly, as if in attempt to try to bring his vision into focus, then let loose a heavy sigh and dropped his head back down on the cot. 

_“Daud.”_

“I’m fine,” he rasped at last, his voice completely void of energy aside for the tiny notes of _leave me alone._

Clearly, he wasn’t fine.

“Daud. Talk to me,” Billie pressed, now walking closer to the cot and, after a second’s thought, placing her hand gently on his shoulder.

When he flinched immediately at the contact and Billie jerked her hand away on instinct, she knew for sure something was wrong.

What in the Void happened in the several hours after dinner? Everything was perfectly fine last night. The mood was favorable—even more than just. Everyone was at ease. Daud seemed well, all the way from the moment he and Corvo returned from the Dust District and up to him going up to the deck after they cleaned up at the table.

What happened? Asking was pointless, clearly, and Billie wasn’t nearly awake enough to be patient with him. Once again she ran through the events of last night in her mind, all the way up till the end that she was aware of—they put away the dishes, Corvo went on deck, Anton went to bed, she went to bed as well at the same time that Daud went up for a smoke—

On deck. Corvo.

They were both there last night, and then something came about. 

Shit.

In the face of the most recent one-on-one conversation she had with Corvo, it didn’t take Billie more than a couple of seconds to root out the cause of the problem. She didn’t even need any confirmation, she told herself—she just knew.

With her lips pressed tightly together, with a sharp sigh huffed out of her nose, she flipped the light switch back down and, having shot one more glance at Daud’s miserable-looking form, crossed the room with a couple of purposeful strides and started down the stairs. 

One flight of stairs later, she heard a distant slam of a door. Anton never slammed doors.

How convenient. 

A certain someone was about to get a good talking-to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must say, I had more fun writing the Heart pressing Corvo’s buttons than I probably should have


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billie: im watching you  
> Corvo: lol ok *snogs daud immediately*  
> Billie: corvo what did I just FUCKING tell you

The words were already tearing out of Billie’s mouth upon her full-blooded entrance into the galley from which the dim light of a single lamp was spilling out into the briefing room—she didn’t really intend for the accusation to sound so cold, but she quite liked the effect.

“What did you do?”

The turbulence of her thoughts came to a momentary calm when she stopped to take in the scene before her—of all the things she expected Corvo to be doing at four in the morning, drinking wasn’t one of them.

No, something has definitely happened. 

Corvo sharply turned his head at the hiss of her question, bottle in hand, with just as sharp a scowl on his face.

“Huh?”

He looked like he just got out of bed—unkempt hair, barefoot, shirtless. The latter caught Billie off guard; she supposed it was a logical and even obvious assumption that Corvo’s upper body was littered with faded scars and deliberately placed burn marks from what looked like iron rods, only she’s never had a reason to give it any thought. Until now, of course, when the reality of it was so in her face it was startling. 

And those were only the physical damages—just how much has he suffered, indirectly, at their hands?

Her gaze didn’t linger for more than a couple of moments and quickly came back up to his face. She had to take a second, however, to recollect her thoughts. 

“What did you do,” she repeated, now slower and clearer, “with Daud?”

The scowl on Corvo’s face remained but subtly morphed into something resembling confusion rather than straight up aggravation. 

“The fuck are you on about?”

Billie couldn’t tell whether he was genuinely confused or playing dumb, this time with greater success—without even thinking about it she analyzed the set of his jaw, the tensed shoulders, the dry rasp of his voice from having chugged too much too quickly. It couldn’t be more obvious that something was, to put it lightly, bothering him.

Billie didn’t think much about her choice of words but she supposed the exaggeration was accurate enough, “I’m _on about_ the way Daud’s lying up there on the bridge right now like he’s waiting for death.”

“What does that even mean—”

“Something’s upset him, Corvo.” Billie emphasized the clearly pronounced words like she was explaining something to an unruly child. “And that’s putting it really fucking mildly. You’re the last person he interacted with and you’re gonna tell me what the fuck happened between you two or so help me.”

Well—she assumed, without actually knowing it, that Daud and him talked on deck last night, but the barest flicker of a shadow that crossed Corvo’s features and was gone before Billie had a chance to latch onto it confirmed it as fact. 

“Nothing important,” he grated after a moment in a low voice that didn’t sound exactly assured, and Billie didn’t even try to suppress a scoff at the way he was still holding on to his defensiveness.

“Doesn’t fucking look like it,” she hissed in reply and debated dragging Corvo up to the bridge just so he could see for himself. Not that he’d let her. “Look here, I’m trying to help him and you certainly aren’t helping me do that right now, so just let go of whatever fucking pride you’re clinging to so hard and work with me here, will you? I promise you won’t fucking die.”

Outsider’s eyes, she didn’t even know what to expect at this point—or didn’t dare guess. She crossed her arms tightly and watched, with belligerent attention, how Corvo finally set the bottle down, leaned on the counter, rubbed his face and drawled a swear under his breath.

Billie gave him a moment to collect himself like that, and when he took his hands off his face it hit her just how tired he looked without the mask of skin-deep anger. Almost a bit dismal as well, although it flickered like he was trying to push it down without much success. Was he also unable to get any sleep? Just what the fuck was going on?

“Corvo,” she tried again, a bit softer this time, and closed her mouth when he looked like he was going to start speaking. 

“I,” he began without looking at her, just absently staring straight ahead at the floorboards, “may have overstepped.”

“In what way?”

Corvo sighed—a long, slow intake of air through his nose, like he was thinking hard. “He seemed fine,” he finally said, quietly, like he was taking to himself.

Oh, Billie thought, Daud certainly had that tendency. To seem. 

She gave Corvo a minute to think and continue talking, and when he didn’t, hissed out an impatient sigh of her own.

“Corvo, for fuck’s sake.”

Despite how quiet they were, his words sliced the air. 

“You’re right. I do, feel something. For him.” Another loaded pause. “And that’s what I told him.”

A short, barely audible puff of breath made its way past Billie’s lips.

She’d suspected as much. She practically knew; she’d seen that something’s been going on, and yet, hearing a confirmation of it was… difficult. 

And she couldn't explain it, either—she knew it to be the truth, felt it in her gut, and yet the mistrustful words of almost hopeful skepticism spilled out all the same. 

“Do you?”

Corvo raised his eyes to meet hers straight on and the sincerity she saw in them was almost like a challenge. 

So he did. There wasn’t any need for further assurances.

Billie breathed another sigh and raked her hands through her hair, then brought them to the base of her skull and massaged the spots of tension behind her ears. Either this was escalating too quickly for her to keep track of, or it was just difficult to wrap her mind around it all, but the urgency of the situation couldn’t be ignored. Void. How did this happen?

She didn’t want to look at Corvo. She didn’t want to have to see that look in his eyes that said, yes, somehow he cared for Daud despite all the faults. She didn’t want to feel that odd pang of jealousy again—but there it was anyway.

Corvo didn’t understand. How could he?

How could he understand the long years of remorse that even assassins—especially assassins—were so vulnerable to? He couldn’t. He never would. How could he claim that—

How could he claim to care for the man that only she could understand?

She was all Daud had. 

Did she have the right to make such claims after what she’s done to him? After all the time they’ve spent apart because of it? Probably not. Selfish? Yes, but weren’t they all?

Daud was all she had. At its core, that was the truth. Always has been.

Billie rubbed her eye, then heard Corvo picking up the bottle from the counter again and taking a swig. Feeling a need for a drink of her own, she held out her hand and took a large gulp, passed the brandy back and watched Corvo put the cork back in, then go to place the bottle and a single empty cup that’s been standing on the counter this whole time back on their respective shelves.

Good. Didn’t need themselves getting drunk even before sunrise.

In the change of angle Billie’s eye fell on Corvo’s back that, unlike his chest and stomach, was mostly void of scars and other signs of old physical damage—except one, that stood out like an accidental blotch of paint on a blank canvas. It was a little difficult to see in the dim light, and Billie squinted to make out a faded, yet still fairly clear, capital letter “R” imprinted on his right shoulder blade.

Billie gulped, clenched her teeth.

“R” for “regicide.”

It was an old brand, clearly—the letter design fancier and more intricate than it should be for such a grisly use of it, as was characteristic of the fashions of the older days of the Empire, before the industrial boom. While a couple of the letter’s edges were made to be elegantly weaved on the iron itself, with the sloppy application the details were washed out and lost on the once melted skin. 

Wasn’t branding of prisoners made illegal under Euhorn Kaldwin?

Billie held in a scoff at the thought. Every “bold measure” was made legal, officially or no, when Hiram Burrows assumed power. The mere fact that Burrows went out of his way to find, or replicate, the very brand that was only used once in the history of the Empire more than thirty years prior to Jessamine’s assassination, served as one of the best indications of the former Lord Regent’s infamous penchant for dramatics.

And it could have—should have—been Daud with that mark.

And her. And all the other Whalers from that day. They all shared the blame, she understood that now more than she ever could fifteen years ago.

Which was why Corvo couldn’t possibly understand. 

“You realize there’s always going to be a rift between you, right?” she spoke suddenly, without really meaning to, and tore her eye away from the brand on Corvo’s back to meet his own when he turned his head. There was something unfavorable in his expression, but he seemed to have resolved to let her speak her mind, for now.

His gaze suddenly felt so penetrating, rooting her to the spot, and Billie had to strain to gain the train of her thoughts back. 

When she did, however, the words began to tear out without her control.

“It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?” She was realizing what she was saying only post factum but saw no point in holding any of it back. “Just…” she waved her hands vaguely, “swoop in in all your Royal Protector glory and just expect everyone else to accommodate and keep up with you. Do you even realize how much Daud has to go through every day in order to simply work with you?”

She must have expected Corvo to start to argue or lash out right about now, because when none of that came and he simply continued to look at her, for a brief moment she was at a loss. He was just… letting her speak and while that was encouraging and heartening on the one hand, it felt incredibly exposing and vulnerable on the other, and Billie couldn’t decide which of those was gaining the high ground.

It was uncomfortable.

“Do you even realize—” and even yet, words just boiled up to the surface and began to spill out, a river with its floodgate raised, “how hard it is to care about someone you’ve wronged and to have to look at them, every day, and know that you can never make amends, no matter how much you may want to? No matter the fact that you’d do anything? And they can say they forgive you a hundred times over, but you’ll never truly believe them because you just can’t wrap your mind around the fact that it’s possible for them to do so in the first place. And then you lie there at night, trying to think rationally, and you tell yourself that their life doesn't revolve around what you did alone and so you begin to realize the egoism of your guilt. And so you tell yourself that there’s no point in making yourself feel it but then you see them again and they show you all this kindness and compassion and it wrenches your insides every time because you can’t ever make yourself feel that you deserve even a shred of it and so you just don’t feel like yourself in your own skin—”

Billie gulped as much air as she could at once, wishing to stop raving but she physically couldn’t, not now, not when it was all spilling out of its own accord and _fucking Void,_ emotions really were a bitch.

“And Daud, he— He could have just went on living, he could have gotten over it, but no. You had to just waltz back into his life and get all in his space and make him give a shit and make him feel like there’s more to him than the remorse his life’s been spinning around for the last fifteen fucking years— I fucking know what that’s like, okay? And I know what he was like before he killed your bloody empress, and when you and I went to find him I prayed that he was back to his old self, but no. His guilt changed him. He allowed it to. Fuck, it’s really hard not to let it, I know, but at least it could have been kept at bay, while you’re stirring it back up every day with your very presence and now you say you _feel_ something for him? Fuck, I— Of course you’re fucking tearing him apart, and yes, he can be a masked son of a bitch, but I can’t believe you aren’t seeing any of that—”

When her voice trailed off to a dry rasp with the lack of air Billie’s vocal cords made her stop and take a few deep breaths, during which she finally saw Corvo’s frankly dumbfounded expression. Maybe he wanted to say something then, or maybe he didn’t know what to say in the first place—Billie didn’t know and didn’t wait to find out.

“When I told you not to confuse him, this right here is exactly what I meant. And now he’s probably— I don’t know, I just know that he isn’t well and if you give a shit about him like you claim you do, then—”

A sigh tore out of her chest when Billie lost track of her words, and she rubbed her eye and bridge of her nose. She needed a moment. To gather herself, to think, to straighten out her brains after this outburst because in this brief pause of a more or less cleared mind she was beginning to realize she wasn’t being completely fair. 

She rubbed her eye again, keeping it closed so she could at least pretend to not feel as vulnerable as she did. 

She was so conflicted. She wanted Daud to be happy. She didn’t want him to hurt. She wanted him to chart his own course and do what felt right to him after he broke his life with his very hands, and yet, now that she found him, she wanted to keep him close and never let him go again and shield him from all the pains of the world, and it was tearing her apart to know that she was powerless to do any of that.

Billie heaved another sigh to at least try and release all the different feelings battling for her attention. 

“I’m sorry,” she rasped, and raked her hands through her hair again, scratching the scalp with her nails. Corvo didn’t deserve all she just threw at him, not really. He had his own problems to worry about. If he did have any malicious intent, then it faded away years ago, should have been overshadowed by his love for his remaining family and his strive to protect it.

He had a daughter that he loved like nothing else, if the look in his eyes whenever the threat to her life was brought up was any indication—Billie knew a loving parent when she saw one, with the perfect example of the contrary a permanent imprint in her memory. Corvo had a family. Corvo had someone to live for. Corvo didn’t have any reason to waste away on empty hatred towards those that no longer presented any threat to those he loved.

Corvo didn’t have any reason, it seemed, to not be honest about these things.

“I’m sorry,” Billie repeated, “I know it can’t be easy, I just— I don’t—”

“Billie.”

She raised her gaze, slowly, almost afraid to meet Corvo’s but his was melancholic and so impossibly solemn it caught her off guard.

“The last thing I want to do—” he said, slowly, and Billie wasn’t sure whether that manner of his was purposeful and placating or whether he was just trying to pick the right words, carefully rolling them on his tongue, feeling their weight. “—is to hurt him.” 

Billie had to take a moment to swallow down a lump in her throat—as well as pretend that there was no such lump in the first place.

“You fucking better not,” she said, aiming for dry curtness but getting a slight crack in her voice instead. 

It was horrible. It was horrible to lay everything out in the open like that, and with the way Corvo was looking at her with that strange compassion of his it was straight up uncomfortable.

Billie crossed her arms tightly, pushed out a sigh through her nose. She wanted to smoke. 

She was about ready to open her mouth to continue speaking, but was relieved that Corvo beat her to the punch. 

“I, uh—” he broke the heavy eye contact, now looking somewhere at the floorboards as he slowly rubbed the sides of his nose bridge with his thumb knuckles. “I didn’t really… consider—”

“I can see that,” Billie snorted on pure instinct but suppressed any next snide remarks that may have slipped into her mind. Corvo only shot her a half-hearted glare before softening his expression once more. 

“I don’t— I don’t want him to hurt, that was never my intention with this, I just thought—” He was speaking slowly, almost as if with physical effort, like he had to think about every word and whether it made sense. He chewed on his cheek for a brief moment. “If I can fix—”

“Why?” The word tore out on its own and Billie frowned and shook her head when she realized it came out wrong. “I mean, yes, you absolutely need to fix this, but I mean that… Why are you trying to make something out of this if you know you and him will just part ways in the end?”

Billie was almost sure that Daud would never agree to stay in Dunwall again, after all the pain the city had brought him. She could relate, too—just thinking about going back there again stirred up all sorts of unpleasant memories. Among some good ones, of course, but people had a tendency to focus on the negatives and Billie wasn’t one to break that pattern. She was almost sure Daud had it even worse. 

Corvo was still staring blankly at the floor. Billie once again saw how tired he looked. There was a sadness in his eyes, one she couldn’t really describe, some sort of solemn acceptance. 

A minute must have passed before he spoke again. It felt like forever. 

“I’d like,” he rasped, “something good to hold on to. A few fond moments to remember.” Corvo pulled in a breath and then slowly hissed it out, like he was making some difficult decision. Billie could feel the weight of that even from where she stood. “But only if Daud will share them.”

It was all so bizarre. All of it.

Frankly, Billie never thought she’d ever get to see Daud again. She never thought he’d be even remotely happy to see her in return. She never thought she’d hear someone expressing their wish to _have something_ with Daud, she never expected to see anyone manage to get as close to him as Corvo did. It was surreal.

And while she still felt that jealous tug of sadness in her chest, it was almost insignificant in the shadow of the emerging wish for Daud to reach out and take a good thing for himself, even if just for a little bit.

People like them, they hardly deserved anything good. But maybe, if there were those to assure them of the contrary, they could change the way they saw their fates.

It was all terribly subjective after all, wasn’t it? That was what made it so difficult.

“Talk to him,” Billie finally said with a light rasp to her voice. “Just talk to him. And do it well because he’s only gonna dig himself further into the ground on his own.”

Daud needed help. Billie wasn’t sure whether Corvo even had his own thoughts set straight enough to be that help, but maybe it could do the both of them good to try to figure it—whatever it was—out together. 

Corvo nodded, first absently, then once again and more determined. 

“But not now,” Billie warned. “He’s really on edge right now, he—” she suppressed a frown at the memory of Daud flinching away from her. There was no use in trying to get through to him now, she was sure—he was a turtle hidden in his shell, she doubted anything could coax him out of it at the moment. “Give him some time to cool off.” As much as was possible, anyway.

Corvo nodded again, grunted his agreement. He took another moment to frown at the floor, then raised his head to her.

“You should get some sleep, Billie.”

There was something gentle in his eyes. Something almost caring in his quiet voice.

Billie shrugged it off and gave a stiff nod. 

“Yeah,” she said, “and you too.” Corvo nodded as well. “We’re en route to Dunwall, by the way.”

“Ah. I guessed as much. Thank you.”

Billie nodded again—it felt awkward to just stand there and do nothing but nod, so she loitered for no more than a couple more seconds before walking out of the galley.

When she closed the door of her cabin behind her, she leaned her back against it and let out a heavy sigh. 

She could hardly believe any of this. All these fucking miserable old men on her ship—what a pain. 

She rubbed the bridge of her nose, heaved another, softer sigh more out of exhaustion than anything else, then haphazardly pulled off her boots on the way to the cot, leaving them strewn about on the floor. On the cot itself, she turned onto her side to face the cabin wall, scooted closer to it so that her forehead was pressed against the cool metal. 

Wrapping her arms around herself, feeling through her skin the vibrations of the ship’s working engine, she fell asleep to its gentle hum.


	29. Chapter 29

With the Heart safely shoved somewhere between the control panels in the engine room, Corvo was finally able to get some sleep. After, he loitered, tarried—first staying in bed with his eyes held forcefully closed against the dry, prickling sensation of his body’s refusing to sleep more (even despite his managing to get only a few hours, with several interruptions), then killing time in the galley and briefing room while he ate and wore out last week’s paper with his eyes. Billie’d said to take some time and that was exactly what he was doing, only, his conscience supplied, not because she told him to. Not quite. 

_Talk to him,_ she’d said and Corvo knew he needed to and yet had no clue where to begin or what to even say, had no clue what Daud needed or wanted to hear—it was a chilling thought, this realization, that he barely knew the man after all.

When he did finally force himself to come out on deck, he spent some time there in hopes of clearing his head in the chilly wind of the overcast day, listening to the racket of the motor as the _Dreadful Wale’s_ autopilot took the ship farther and farther, making Karnaca shrink into the fog in the distance. Soon, lingering began to do more harm than good, the growing weight of commitment pressing more and more on Corvo’s shoulders, so he blinked up to the bridge wing but hesitated and stopped at the door. Daud could be sleeping.

That wasn’t a big deal, Corvo told himself—he would just leave if that was the case. Come back later. It didn’t get any simpler than that.

He closed the door almost soundlessly behind him when he walked in. He didn’t really know what he expected, he supposed that seeing Daud lying on his side on the cot, face to the wall, wasn’t the worst of it. _Asleep,_ the assumption slipped at once into his mind, but Corvo forced himself to stay where he was because he could acutely feel that it was wishful thinking. 

No, Daud wasn’t asleep. He wouldn’t be. Corvo could tell by the pattern of his breathing, anyway. 

He stood by the door and tried to gather his thoughts to no real avail. And it was stupid, he thought, how much he was hesitating because of just one person’s account of the situation, and even then it wasn't fully clear what was going on. Corvo made himself unfreeze, then went over to the large windows by the controls if only to change the position to one where he didn’t feel so out in the open.

“I figured you stayed here,” he uttered, then frowned slightly at having said what was probably the stupidest thing he could start off with.

The silence was expected. Corvo only flicked his eyes to Daud’s motionless back a couple of times and continued to stare out the window. Trying to collect his thoughts turned out to be pointless as he didn’t have many in the first place.

He felt useless. He just stared blankly at the _Wale’s_ bow beyond the glass like it was both the dullest and most interesting thing he's ever seen.

A couple of shallow sighs, a few more painfully slow, dragging minutes.

“What do you want, Corvo?”

No bite in the voice, no real inquiry, either. Just exhaustion. Corvo chewed on his tongue.

“I came to talk.”

The silence felt empty, apathetic. 

Corvo felt he needed to elaborate. “About last night.”

What a nice little code name, he thought, for a much more extensive topic.

“You just up and left,” he continued after a bit, trying to gauge the angle from which to, hopefully in a careful manner, approach the situation. “I was a little concerned.”

 _I am,_ his conscience corrected, _concerned. Worried._

A long pause, and then, finally, he received a response.

“Why?”

The subtle tinge of cynicism in the word that Corvo managed to pick out made him bate his breath and return his eyes to Daud’s figure. Was this a tiny piece of what Billie had talked about, this… refusal to accept the very idea of possible care from others?

It was something. It was a loose string that he could try to pull out and then deal with whatever came with it. Corvo huffed out a curt breath, then moved slowly—almost carefully, as if not to spook—towards the cot.

“Should be obvious,” he said and sat down at the foot of the bed, keeping an eye on Daud were he to exhibit any reaction to the closed distance. He didn’t, and Corvo waited patiently in the following silence.

“I told you you shouldn’t,” Daud finally said.

“And I’m telling you that’s not up to me.”

Another pause, and then a barely audible huff from Daud before he changed the subject. “Billie sent you.”

Corvo raised an eyebrow and tilted his head, as if Daud could see. “…She did. But it’s not just that.”

That was the weak spot, Corvo could see now—Daud was taking the time to think or went silent altogether as soon as implications of whatever was stirring between them arose. Corvo thought that addressing it head on wasn’t the best idea, not right away.

“She was worried,” he tentatively continued. “Said you were acting strange. Like something was bothering you.”

“I applaud her observation skills.”

“Daud.”

The cot creaked and dipped and Corvo looked to see as Daud finally turned onto his back, propped himself up on his elbow, and fixed Corvo with a steely gaze. He didn’t look too well. With the night that he's had, Corvo didn't suppose that he looked much better himself.

Daud just kept looking, outwardly calm and almost expectant, _insistent,_ and Corvo felt like he was put on the spot, like whatever he was saying somehow wasn’t good enough. 

He supposed that was fair.

“I,” he tried again, slowing his words, “was worried.”

Daud tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, both motions incredibly subtle, like he was looking for a catch. “Were you, now?”

He sounded skeptical. But Corvo knew genuine mistrust when he saw it, and this wasn’t it. If anything, it amused him. 

“You know, it’s really funny that you’re asking that, after all we’ve been through.”

He almost missed it, but something flickered in Daud’s eyes at that, a slightest slip of control, and Corvo had no more doubts about the fact that the man was holding something back.

“Yeah. That’s right.” This time, Daud’s voice came deeper. He slowly ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “Been through a lot.”

His eyes were cold steel. In spite of himself, Corvo tensed.

After a long moment, Daud looked down at his hands and began picking at something on the side of one of his fingers. “Did you forget?” he asked in such an inappropriately casual manner it was chilling.

Corvo pressed his lips. “That’s not what I—”

“Did you,” the quiet accusal in the slowed words made drear well up in his insides, “forget?”

Daud was looking at him again, and if Corvo wasn’t sitting down already he’d be frozen to the spot.

So there it was. Old, stale bitterness seeping out through the cracks. It was practically out in the open now, much easier to spot and latch onto.

Corvo took care to not let his chest expand in full as he slowly pulled in a long breath. It felt like Daud’s eyes were physically locked on his, he couldn’t move them away if he tried.

“No,” he said. “Though, somehow, you seem all too eager to remind me anyway.”

Cold focus and assessment layered over Daud’s eyes like a crust as he held his stare, the kind Corvo’s seen him fix on targets and enemies and in general those he didn’t trust. The kind Corvo remembered being fixed on himself back in Albarca, and the reminder twisted his guts into knots.

Oh, no, no, no. This wouldn’t do. They were well beyond that. 

Only after a moment Corvo realized that he was lightly shaking his head. 

“Stop that,” he said.

Daud only tilted his head in faked guiltlessness and suddenly Corvo wanted to punch him in the face.

“Stop looking at me like I’m a stranger, Daud.”

“Oh, but maybe I shouldn’t.” The urge strengthened. “I’m starting to think we’ve grown a little too close.”

“Is that you speaking,” Corvo couldn’t stop an impatient hiss from tearing out of his throat, “or your self-reproach?”

He wanted to be respectful of Daud’s guilt, he really did, especially after the talk he got from Billie. But he never signed up to just sit there and take it when it was being turned on him like a weapon. 

To his credit, Daud held his composure. To Corvo’s relief, he spied growing cracks in it and hoped it wasn’t wishful thinking.

To Corvo’s surprise as well, Daud didn’t shy away from the question, although the pause that came before it couldn’t be ignored.

“Both,” Daud simply said. 

“You sure?”

This was much more irritating than Corvo had expected it to be. Thoughts threatened to boil his brain as he tried to guess what the fuck happened in the past several hours to make Daud put up these adamantine walls around himself. It was only fitting, he supposed, that it was met with the same from the opposing side—Corvo wasn’t sure whether the short question that tore out of his mouth by itself was driven by genuine skepticism or petty stubbornness of his own, a refusal to accept what he didn’t want to believe.

Daud, however, didn’t answer, and that alone lit a spark of something resembling hope. Corvo hurried to speak up again before the man could change his mind.

“Yes, we’ve grown close. Closer than either of us anticipated, yes. But don’t even try to pretend that it came out of nowhere.”

Daud was still silent, his brow and jaw tensed, and Corvo took it as a sign that he had a chance of getting through to him. At least, he very strongly wanted to believe that.

The thin layer of protective ice seemed to have begun melting away from his eyes, however—Corvo took the opportunity to throughly search them straight on. Make him see that he wasn’t shying away, that he meant every word.

When he spoke again, the brazen sincerity of the words made them much more a confrontation than placation. 

“I said I care for you and I wasn’t joking. At this point it should be undeniable that there’s something happening between us—I like to consider myself a decent human being so I will lay off if you’re not up for it. But it’ll be a real fucking pity if you withdraw just because of some twisted principle.”

Daud raised his eyebrows, then gave an incredulous scoff. It was almost mocking. “Some twisted principle? Are the consequences of having murdered the woman you loved a principle, now?”

“That’s not what I fucking mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

Corvo sighed and rubbed his eyes, leaving his head pressed against his hand with his elbow propped up on his thigh. “Daud,” he said, his voice suddenly sounding tired and weak. “Please.”

They weren’t going to get anywhere like this.

When he heard another huff Corvo rubbed his eyes once more. “Just what happened in this single night, huh? At least tell me that, will you?”

“What should have happened a while ago.” Daud’s voice was a thick rasp, in his words now bitter chagrin rather than bite, and Corvo could hardly bear to hear it. “I fucked up. I forgot myself. It’s easier to just cut it now and be done with it.”

It was straight up painful to hear and Corvo was inwardly flaring up. He wanted to grab Daud by the collar and shake him awake— _Where did you fuck up? Where?!_ he wanted to roar—but it was impossible not to see what this man has hammered into his head and it was taking Corvo’s all to will himself to try to pull it back out in a manner that was calm and rational.

“A bit late to have a conscience awakening, don't you think?” he rasped through his teeth, his throat tense and tight from his voice’s refusal to work properly. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t surprised at his own reaction to this whole thing; he hadn’t anticipated the amount of hurt this conversation could stir up and so he couldn’t hold back the bitterness from seeping into his words. “A bit overdue, if you ask me. You can’t first make people care and then crawl back into your shell, just like that.”

The cot moved again and in his periphery Corvo saw how Daud pulled in his legs and shifted to sit on the edge, like he was. Leveling the playing field, huh? “Shouldn’t have crawled out in the first place—”

“Well then it’s too bad that you fucking did.”

Funny, Corvo thought as he glared at Daud straight on, now that he was sitting near and directly in his line of sight—first this man spins all this crap about distancing and then he physically moves closer. Under different circumstances, Corvo could even see it as something other than confrontational. Daud wasn’t looking comfortable with that decision of his, however, perhaps was even regretting it, but to his credit he took Corvo up on his challenge and held his stare.

“You did,” Corvo repeated, “and you showed who you really are behind that mask of a name that you’ve made for yourself.”

Daud suddenly grimaced in distaste. “Spare me the bullshit.”

“Hey, fuck you. You think it was easy to keep coming face to face with the evidence of you being a decent person? A good man?” Daud tightened his lips and looked away as if Corvo had somehow wronged him, fixing his stare ahead. “You think it was easy to accept the fact that you aren't just some cold-blooded filth I thought of you as in all these years? No, Daud, I didn’t forget that you killed her—but it took a shit ton of work to make myself step over that fact, and you know what? I’m glad that I did.”

It took a while to realize how much of a burden hatred was. It became clear only after the weight of it was gone, when its absence showed just how crushing it had been.

“So I won’t let you make it all go to waste. I won’t let you make it all be for nothing. Because what you’re doing right now,” Corvo pointed at Daud’s face, his clenched jaw, the same stubbornly persistent distance in his eyes, “that’s not you. That’s not how I know you.” 

There was a long, stifling pause, and when Daud spoke he did so unexpectedly quietly. Almost tentatively. 

“What do you know, Corvo?”

The barest hint of vulnerability in the phrase did wonders to immediately soothe and soften Corvo’s temper. It almost caught him off guard, and he stilled and took it as a sign of progress. 

“Maybe not much,” he said, bringing his voice down as well, as if to not risk spooking the newfound chance. “And I can’t claim to know your life or what you’ve done and why, and you can’t claim the same about me—but what I do know is that the man I met on this very boat is sitting right here and is trying to hide from me, and he's doing a pretty damn shitty job at it."

Corvo thought he glimpsed how Daud was trying to hold in a sigh, then the man looked down at his hands, fidgeting with the tips of fingers, and Corvo had to repress the urge to reach over and take Daud’s hands in his, press them gently together, stop this restless squirming, show him that it was all okay.

“I don’t know what you told yourself last night,” he continued, “but whatever it is, it can’t erase what you and I have been through. It just can’t. And if it’ll help— No, I know it will. Just… tell me what’s going on, tell me what you’re thinking, because— Because I hate to see you like this.”

Now Daud sighed, it sounded a bit shaky and labored, and it hurt to hear. He pressed on his eyes with the heels of his hands, dragged them down his face. 

Corvo moved closer to him, just a little bit. “Daud.” His voice stood like a spike in his throat. _Look at me._ “I want to help you. I really do. So let me.” It was difficult to find words, difficult to try to appease someone who so clearly didn’t want to be appeased. “Whatever you’re bringing down on yourself—you don’t deserve it.”

“But I do,” Daud rasped and Corvo held in a bittersweet scoff at the painfully evident stubbornness. 

“Who told you that?”

Daud scoffed dryly in return. “I know it.”

“Is that for you to decide, though? What are you getting out of it?” Corvo chewed on the inside of his lip, gently shook his head. “I‘m not pretending to understand, I realize it can’t be easy to let go of guilt, I— I, uh, talked with Billie—” Daud visibly tensed at the mention and Corvo couldn’t begin to guess why. “She,” he let out a short breathy laugh, “yelled at me for half an hour and if there’s one thing I got out of it, is that she understands what you’re putting yourself through, and that, more than anything, it’s tearing her apart to see you this way.” Corvo didn’t know exactly why he was saying this, but when Billie opened up to him, when she poured out her fears and worries that flared in her eye without being explicitly stated, it was something of a revelation. Beneath the surface topic of guilt and accusations lay a goldmine of pure, unbridled, trepid love that hit like a well-placed kick in the gut.

It forced to acknowledge and gave context to all the times Corvo has gleaned Daud’s controlled fondness towards Billie, this pride, the way it was evident how he looked at her like a partner, a friend, a child he didn’t have. It made their relationship so much more meaningful than how it seemed on the surface, and Corvo felt the force of it like cold water surging over his head.

And then it hit him.

Daud was rubbing his face like he was trying to pull himself together, then he sucked in a long breath, and Corvo decided to try his luck.

“Do you know how much she loves you?” he tried, voice almost as low as a whisper but still firm and assured in his conviction. He could have sworn he heard a hitch in Daud’s throat and it shot a pang into his chest. He didn’t resist a new urge for contact and placed a hand on Daud’s shoulder, rubbed its side with his thumb, reassuringly, encouragingly—it felt appropriate. “You know how much she cares? Knowing you two, I’m... guessing you might have never even told each other as much.” 

Daud didn’t try to pull away from the contact and Corvo realized how much he needed that reassurance. He was no psychologist, he had a hard time with words when he needed them most, but he felt that this was right and was grateful for this brief moment of tentative confidence. Daud kept pressing with the heels of his hands on his eyes, his breathing grew heavier, and as if to match that force Corvo firmed up the touch on his shoulder, slow but intent sort of massaging, perhaps unconsciously returning the favor for the times he’d found comfort in Daud’s grounding arms. 

“If there’s one thing I know,” he spoke up again, and couldn’t ignore the hoarseness that seeped back into his voice, “is that, in difficult, emotionally trying times, it’s important to keep your loved ones close. They... keep you sane.” If anything, he felt he knew that like no one else. “Billie, she— it hurts her to see you like this, that would have been obvious even if she hadn’t told me herself. She needs you. I guess what I’m trying to say is… if not for yourself, then at least try to step over your guilt for her sake. It does no good to anyone.”

Silence fell for a while, and Corvo looked blankly at the floor as he tried to gauge whether what he was saying was making any sense or having any effect whatsoever, but then Daud spoke.

“She shouldn’t need me,” he said in such a quiet, broken voice Corvo sensed the vulnerability of it in his very bones.

But there it was—Corvo stilled his breath, afraid to move even a muscle as the root of the issue was slowly manifesting in the heavy air. The devastating collision of other people’s care and hatred of self—suddenly, it couldn’t be more clear.

“But that isn’t for you to decide,” he replied and unconsciously squeezed Daud’s shoulder as if it would help to strengthen the meaning of his words. “It just isn’t. And so it’s a… responsibility, of sorts, to… be there for the people who care for you and need you, to be the best you can be for them. Because we don’t choose those who love us, and they don’t choose it either. And all that’s left for us to do is try to make the best of it.

“I know what Billie did to you. And I know that the guilt from it eats at her to this day, I know that you’re similar in that way. You know something else that I know? I know that you love her just as much as she loves you, if not more. And _that_ means that you want her to stop hurting over something she can’t possibly change. Tell me I’m right.”

Daud sucked in a sharp breath, clenched both his jaw and his eyes shut, and gave a stiff nod. Corvo pressed his lips together into a tight smile, sad but genuine, and gave Daud’s shoulder another light squeeze.

“Well she wants the same for you. And I want that for you. Because I also don’t want you to hurt, and—” Corvo choked up all of a sudden from his own sentiments that caught him off guard with the way they overflowed his mind, then exhaled to try to ease the stifling in his chest and continued, “and if there’s anything I can do to help that, anything at all—”

The tactile response of his hand was automatic when the shoulder underneath it tensed and then jerked, and Daud sniffed, sharp and abrupt like he was trying to unsuccessfully hold it in. His lips were pressed together so tightly it looked painful, he was rubbing his eyes again. Corvo swallowed as he felt the tremor of his heart as if it was a glass that was about to shatter from pressure that was too high. It did things to him. Strange, unbearable things, and once again he was almost startled by the painfully obvious fact of how dear Daud has become to him, because otherwise he wouldn’t be trying so hard to keep himself from falling apart right here with him.

Daud shook his head and the small motion made Corvo fear what he was about to hear. 

“I’m sorry,” Daud croaked then, and by some miracle Corvo heard him over the crack in his shaky whisper, and it made him breathe out a shuddering sigh to try to rid his throat of a lump that suddenly lodged there. “I’m so sorry—”

He choked on the word, then clasped a hand over his mouth in attempt to hold himself together as rapidly forming tears framed his eyes and then escaped confinement to run down his cheeks. The lump in Corvo’s throat grew and blocked his windpipe, and he forced out a sharp sigh before shifting closer and leaning into Daud’s side, pressing against him— _I’m here. I’m right here and I’ve got you and I won’t let you leave._

“I know,” he whispered somewhere into the collar of Daud’s coat, and a small, quiet sob tore out of Daud’s chest. Corvo closed his eyes, greedily breathing in the warmth of proximity as he rubbed soothing circles into Daud’s back. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” 

A shudder coursed through Daud’s body and Corvo pressed into him tighter, harder—let him know in any way he could that he was right here with him. Daud sucked in another quivering breath, as if the air in the room wasn’t enough. “How—?”

“Because you’re a good man, Daud.” Corvo forced his voice to work firmer and louder than the croaking whispers the both of them only seemed capable of managing right now. “You showed me that. I’ll tell you over and over again if that’s what it takes to finally make you understand. So even if you still don’t, just… I don’t know, just pretend that you do and believe me and just accept it as fact, because it’s the fucking truth.”

Another sigh with the weight of many years’ hurt, another tremble that Corvo felt so acutely as if it was his own. Who knew, maybe it was.

“I don’t deserve this, Corvo. I don’t deserve to know you.”

“Stop,” Corvo rasped in return, barely noticing or caring about stray tears of his own as he reached to place his hand on the far side of Daud’s neck, feeling the heated pulse under his palm, gently pulling him closer and leaning against his shoulder. “Just stop.” 

They sat and they cried and with every new hitch of Daud’s breath the realization of how much this man meant to him grew and grew in Corvo’s chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crying really is a perfect bonding activity, isn’t it? ajkshdgk
> 
> In all seriousness though. Oh man :’ )


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

He was fucked.

He was fucked and Corvo was completely unyielding, like a whirlwind, an intense but utterly soft and gentle whirlwind that made his head spin with the medley of emotions Daud wasn’t sure he was even capable of. He could do nothing but just sit there, sit still and wait for this storm to either pass or envelop him completely.

With Corvo right there and next to him, the first of those seemed incredibly unlikely. 

Daud allowed himself to acknowledge that he didn’t mind. That he was fine with letting go and just giving himself over fully to the circumstances, because he didn’t have even a shred of energy to keep his defenses up—because he didn’t want to keep them up in the first place. Because, by some miracle, whatever Corvo has been saying seemed to tug at all the right strings, by some miracle Corvo knew exactly what to say to make Daud break and accept his new fate of being utterly and completely fucked—or maybe Corvo could have said anything in the world and Daud still would have clung to the words like some creed just because he was fucking tired. 

Just because he wanted a moment of rest. The fact that he was even thinking in that way was tearing him apart, but it was in collision with the conflicting encouragement Corvo has been giving him—his words were like permission, approval of giving up and just going with the current, even if for a bit. 

_It’s okay,_ replayed over and over in Daud’s mind, the whisper of the man next to him growing more and more real the more he thought about it. Was it really okay? Was anything ever okay? At the moment Daud couldn’t bring himself to care and he felt like shit about it, only, Corvo’s words were enough to let him close his eyes and just pretend, give into this illusion that, maybe if he tried hard enough, could become reality.

Perhaps that reality could be made to come a little bit faster.

“Tell me again.”

He wasn’t sure if Corvo even heard him with how hoarse and quiet his voice came out, but before he could clarify Corvo breathed a sigh that brushed so softly against Daud’s neck all words evaporated from his tongue.

“What exactly?” Corvo whispered. With how close they were, Daud couldn’t see, but he imagined that Corvo had his eyes closed, that he was at his most quiet and peaceful and Daud drew from that ease, calming himself even more with that thought alone.

“That it’s okay,” he replied after a moment, also in a whisper, almost tentative with the guilty, nagging remnants of selfishness that tried to knock him off balance for even daring to make such a request. He gulped, trying to swallow down those ropes that threatened to tie around his throat all over again—no, they wouldn’t get to him, not now. He wouldn’t care, not at the moment. He closed his eyes, then opened them again halfway; his eyelids were impossibly heavy. “Tell me.”

“It’s okay.” The immediate words were little more than a puff of warm breath, all that was needed. “I promise.”

If he hadn’t already cried it all out a few minutes prior, Daud could burst into tears right then. He just took a deep breath instead, uncaring about the shakiness of it because it felt like his lungs finally began working at full capacity for the first time in days. 

This was all so much. So much that he just couldn’t find the energy to give a shit about the next hour, or the next day, or the next week or month; he could only just try to hold himself together in this storm that was threatening to swallow him whole in the most present second.

And even then, his strength was waning and getting overshadowed by the oddly rapidly emerging wish to just let himself dissolve in it.

He felt his own pulse beating against Corvo’s right hand at his neck, the vibrations reflecting back against his skin. He felt the warmth of that arm over his chest, and he must have needed more because, the next thing he knew, he was sliding his left hand over Corvo’s wrist, covering the back of his hand, wrapping it in his and pulling it slowly away. Corvo seemed hesitant to this breaking of contact, his fingertips lingering on Daud’s neck until they couldn’t anymore, and with the growing distance he could only wrap his fingers around Daud’s own as if on instinct. 

With Corvo’s hand right next to his chin Daud ran his thumb over his parched knuckles, slowly, barely touching, then pressed his lips to one of them. Gingerly, almost weightlessly. Corvo bent his fingers in his hand, just slightly, and Daud adjusted his hold to brush his thumb over Corvo’s and then placed another kiss on the back of his hand, this one longer and firmer. He made no move to pull away when Corvo took a long audible breath and slowly turned his hand in Daud’s so he could brush his jaw with his fingertips and Daud kissed the base of his thumb, then his palm— After a few moments Corvo pulled Daud’s hand into his in return and gently ran his thumb over his fingers, and Daud let his eyes fall closed again. 

Corvo’s whisper was right at his ear, breath brushing skin like a weightless caress.

“You should get something to eat,” he muttered, sounding almost aimless in his unhurriedness, as though he was half asleep. “Been a while since dinner.”

Daud left his eyes closed, not wanting to risk breaking this comfort of proximity even with a flick of his eyelids. “Mhm.”

“Come back down,” Corvo murmured breathily after a pause. “Hm? I’ll make you something.”

Food was the last thing on Daud’s mind. That wasn’t what was important, anyway.

“Alright,” he replied. 

Corvo pulled away with such reluctance Daud felt it as if it was his own. This time, there was no emptiness in the absence of contact—just the calm warmth that weaved into the air and had nothing to do with temperatures. 

Daud turned his head when he felt that Corvo was looking at him, met his eyes for a quiet moment that seemed to say so much and yet nothing at all. For once, he felt that nothing needed to be said in the first place, and he felt himself slipping more and more into this dream of a moment.

Corvo stood up, looked at Daud again with a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. His crow’s feet deepened slightly with soft warmth; his eyes were smiling. They were beautiful. Beautiful and dear. 

Corvo nodded towards the staircase.

“Come on,” he said. 

A soft breath left Daud’s chest as he found energy to stand up as well, and then he followed Corvo down into the hull.

*

Billie looked almost relieved when she saw him. For the rest of the day Daud felt how she was keeping an eye on him, as though she was waiting for him to break down at any second. It wasn’t a big deal, he assured her, and didn’t mind her attention. Sometimes people just wanted to worry. It amused him to see how Billie was trying hard but still failing to not show her concern. 

They were smoking on deck when she asked him about Corvo. To her honest inquiry of where they were headed and if Daud knew what they— _he,_ he could read between the lines just fine—were doing at all, he just shrugged. It wasn’t anything that could be put into sensible words, anyway—he got the impression that Billie understood it herself. 

The next several days were enveloped in such quiet calm it was at times hard to believe that they were trying to depose a usurper witch and not just taking a cruise along the ocean. Of course, the feeling tended to evaporate as soon as a certain Royal Protector came into view or into Daud’s thoughts—and both happened quite often—but even Corvo, it seemed, grew weary of pointless agitation and allowed himself to relax after a time. He’d told Daud briefly of Delilah in that Void heart of his, how he shoved it away so he wouldn’t go mad even before the deed was done. Daud couldn’t blame him. The man had it bad enough already with having had to let go of his loved one, didn’t need any essences of witches rubbing salt into the wound to boot. 

Without that heart nearby Corvo seemed calmer, more at peace. Daud didn’t think it was wishful thinking; that possibility went out the window as soon as he started noticing that giving in to momentary forgetfulness of why they were on this boat in the first place came easier and easier even with Corvo around. 

They hardly talked about their encounter on the bridge from a few days ago. There wasn’t much to say, anyway, when all that mattered was that it now was, on the one hand, somehow a little easier to simply _be,_ as if a certain weight on Daud’s chest hasn’t been exactly lifted, but still lessened.

On the other hand, it was easier and simultaneously harder. Because with the calm and that careless forgetfulness came the free time to think and… feel… because, and Daud wasn’t sure whether it was actually happening or if he was just paying more attention to it now, Corvo tended to stand just a little closer, his glances tended to linger just a little longer.

Like now, for instance, when the two were sharing a pot of tea at night in the galley, just because—it was late, the day had been cloudy and the ocean even saw a few sprinkles of rain every now and then, so everyone was somewhat drowsy the whole time. Perhaps that was the reason for this general lack of alertness and a hazy mellowness that took its place, the one that mercilessly obliterated a good chunk of impulse control and any sort of concern about the lack thereof. Perhaps that was why Daud now felt Corvo’s eyes on him so much. Moreover, he knew that it was exactly why he let his own gaze roam over Corvo in return.

Conversation was going nowhere. After a certain point Daud wished they would talk about _something,_ anything at all that would distract him from his thoughts that were rapidly getting filled up with empty sentimentalities.

The tea went cold. Daud finished his, set the cup aside. Corvo did the same—they were both tired and lazy, they’d wash them tomorrow. 

In the hallway they halted, Corvo wished a good night. Neither of them moved. Corvo was standing so close, his eyes glinting in the dim light from the long thin lamps stretching along the ceiling and barely keeping the place from being submerged in complete darkness. Neither of them moved, Corvo was looking at him, Daud was looking back, and the next thing he knew he was pulling Corvo by the upper arm to his room. As soon as the door closed behind them Daud pressed Corvo against him, this amazing source of warmth, firm and enveloping and _right here._ After a briefest of moments Daud felt Corvo responding, his arms wrapping around him in return, and a sigh of unconscious relief escaped his chest and right into the crook of Corvo’s neck, who let loose a short huff of his own, evidently at the ticklish sensation. The huff was shaky and almost breathless, which was a strange thing to say about a breath in the first place but Daud didn’t care, he cared about nothing, he just wanted to hear that soft sound again.

So he slowly moved up, ghosting with just the tip of his nose over the skin of Corvo’s neck, greedily soaking in those same breathless breaths as he brushed his fingers over the soft hair at the base of Corvo’s skull.

He didn’t really plan on this happening—he didn’t plan anything at all, whom was he kidding?—but here they were again after all this time, Corvo’s lips on his just so impermissible— Have they always been this soft? It was baffling, somewhat, for a man who skewered witches without any hesitation to have this soft and gentle of a mouth; the contrast seemed to only deepen the effect and Daud was gladly drowning in it. 

Another moment of shared breathlessness and now his hands were framing Corvo’s face, pulling him in closer, going in deeper— The man himself wasn’t far behind, one hand wrapped around Daud’s wrist and a low groan forming in the back of his throat when Daud took a few generous seconds to pepper kisses on the side of his mouth. He quite liked the bristles of Corvo’s beard prickling his chin, it was just the right amount of roughness that made him want to offset it by kissing Corvo again and again, and, Void, he wasn’t about to stop.

*

The mouths’ movements slowed down, though all the hands were still in place, very insistent, and Corvo just took a moment to bask in the overwhelming surge of emotions that probably would have knocked him off his feet if he didn’t have Daud right there to lean against.

His hand moved on its own, probably, in its tentative journey down Daud’s side. So warm and firm through the shirt—it was odd how satisfying it was to touch; he expected it to be even more so without that unnecessary layer of fabric in the way.

Standing there, pressed so tightly together, feeling breath playing against each other’s faces was so soothing and just so _nice_ Corvo had no more doubts that this was exactly where they were supposed to be.

“It’s late,” he didn’t know why he whispered into Daud’s lips, perhaps just to feel that moist warmth that was so perfect against his own. Daud hummed out a breathy affirmative, then kissed him again, and Corvo wondered just how such slow and gentle kisses could quicken the beat of his heart so much.

He could barely hold in a groan when Daud pulled away with such great reluctance Corvo couldn’t understand why he did in the first place. But his eyes were so soft, Corvo could barely see it in the dark but he could certainly feel, and then Daud brushed his thumb over his cheek and leaned back in to place a light kiss on the corner of his mouth, as if to say he wasn’t going anywhere. Such a small gesture, and yet Corvo was left feeling even more assured than he already was, and there was a small smile playing on his lips as he watched Daud go and turn on the lamp that was just as old as all the other ones on this ship, bathing the room in a soft orange glow that wasn’t nearly enough to clear the shadows. Corvo didn’t wait, in a few seconds they were on each other again, his hands playing at the hem of Daud’s shirt, slipping underneath to feel the heated skin— At the touch of Daud’s fingers on his neck tendon he shivered, then a breathy gasp slipped out when Daud leaned in to brush his lips over the same spot, light at first and then suddenly much more firm and solid and _fuck—_

Heat pooled low in his stomach, his hands roamed over Daud’s sides and ribs and before he knew it their shirts were on the floor and his hands were running along Daud’s arms and his lips were pressed against his shoulder— _Void, those broad, muscled shoulders_ — Corvo wouldn’t say he’d ever looked at men that way and it wasn’t like it mattered, this here was special, random thoughts driven by impulses of the flesh stemming from the need to hold and be held, when the need to simply be near each other didn’t seem like enough anymore.

Daud’s hands were firm and yet so impossibly gentle on his sides, the skin burning pleasantly where he was rubbing slow pattens into it. Daud’s breath was shaky against his neck and Corvo let shivers course freely through him, knowing that his breathing was no better, that they both were coming apart at the seams and there was little they could do about it. When standing upright didn’t seem likely anymore he pushed Daud towards the cot, the gesture soft and yet insistent enough to transmit the urgency and Daud picked it up immediately, sitting down and pulling Corvo by the waist to stand closer in front of him. 

He couldn’t believe how gentle Daud’s hands were.

He just couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He felt as if all air was knocked out of his lungs at the simplest of touches, he watched with bated breath as Daud took a few long moments to look him over, then tentatively, gingerly, as if asking permission, ghosted with just the pads of his fingers over one of the long-faded scars on his ribs, then the one trailing down the side of his stomach. Corvo’s abdomen constricted reflexively at the foreign touch; Daud must have noticed—of course he noticed—because he placed his whole palm down and tenderly rubbed the warmth into the skin. It worked almost instantly; Corvo made himself relax and brought his hand to the back of Daud’s head to card through his hair, which seemed to be something of an incentive since Daud then leaned in and placed a long, feather-light kiss on his ribcage before pressing his forehead against it while he continued to rub slow circles into the skin with his thumb.

There was a trepid hesitance in his touch now, some sort of sorrow. Corvo didn’t—couldn’t—let Daud linger in it, soon burying both hands in his hair and pulling him away from his torso so he could lean in and press his lips to Daud’s forehead. The latter sighed at that, the breath tearing out of his throat unexpectedly heavily, and Corvo kissed him again on the temple, then on the top of his head, eyes clenched with the surge of tenderness that filled him up and threatened to spill over the edge.

 _It’s okay,_ he almost said but didn’t feel any more need for it when Daud finally relaxed under his touch, pressed his lips to his abdomen when Corvo pulled back, peppered open-mouthed kisses in a trail downwards.

Hands slid down his waist, settled on his hips, gentle lips brushed over his hipbone and Corvo shivered with the visceral unexpectedness of the touches in increasingly intimate places that haven’t known human contact in years. And he gave himself over to it fully, not one piece of him resisting when Daud wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him down to straddle his thighs— they just couldn’t decide, it seemed, where to give their full attention; hands sliding over heated skin in disorderly paths with no destinations, breath intermixing with one another’s with no aim. 

Corvo knew they were long gone when Daud made another gasp spill out of him with the barest graze of teeth over his collarbone, the pleasant sensation made incredibly acute by the sheer need for any and all contact. He wanted, needed, needed everything, all the closeness they could manage—and it sweetly, almost deceptively felt like this was merely the start.

“Daud,” he whispered somewhere into his temple, hoarse and breathless, lips in constant contact with skin as though pulling away even a little was the worst possible thing he could bring upon himself. “I, um. I’ve never—”

Daud only tightened his hold around his waist and shifted to press a kiss, then another, to Corvo’s shoulder.

“Okay,” he murmured into his skin, and Corvo tightened his hold around Daud’s shoulders in return. “I’ve got you.”

Corvo smiled, nuzzling the side of Daud’s face. “I’ve no doubt,” he replied, and then his breath was taken away.

*

Daud didn’t want the sun to rise. 

Daud wanted to stay forever in this moment that must have been a dream because of the way Corvo was pressed against him in his bed and nuzzling his neck, because of the way their bare limbs were tangled together, because of the way they were probably equally sleepy and at the same time utterly drunk on each other.

Corvo’s shoulder blade was cool to the touch as Daud was absentmindedly running his hand over it, not lingering any longer than necessary on the ridges of the prison brand. Corvo had kissed him hard when he first saw it, then told him not to think or worry about it, at least for now, and as much as Daud thought he shouldn’t, he was more than happy to oblige. It was all that mattered in that moment—anything Corvo could want he was happy to give.

Void, just what has this man done to him?

Daud leaned away, just slightly, just enough to be able to see his beautiful relaxed face—Corvo must have felt his gaze on him because he opened one of his eyes, a soft smile tugging at the corner of his lips in an expression of pure contentment. He hummed questioningly, Daud gave a light shake of his head as if to tell him it was nothing, and Corvo closed his eyes back up and breathed a soft sigh.

Daud couldn’t seem to keep off him, apparently, because after a while he raked his hand into Corvo’s hair and played with the soft tips at the back of his neck, inducing a throaty hum at the contact with a sensitive nerve spot, then carded through the longer strands on Corvo’s temple. 

“When’d you start cutting it?” he asked quietly after a long moment and Corvo blinked his eyes open again. His brow crinkled slightly in thought.

“Oh, a while ago.” He yawned, shifted a little closer. “Eight, nine years ago, maybe. Why?”

Daud gave an ambiguous hum, still lazily fidgeting with the soft strands above Corvo’s ear. He jerked his shoulder in an equally lazy shrug.

“It suits you,” he said after all.

Corvo huffed a soft breath, a small smile stretching his lips. “Yeah? And longer hair didn’t?”

“Oh, no, it did.”

The smile grew, accompanied by a light chuckle in the back of the throat. Daud caught himself on the thought that he never wanted to stop hearing that sound.

“I like it like this,” he said after a moment, without even a shred of care for his current lack of impulse control. But it felt nice. Honesty. 

Corvo pulled up to press a soft peck to Daud’s jaw, then lay back down without leaving any space between them. It was nice like that.

“Good,” Corvo muttered, and let his eyes fall closed again. 

Daud thought he could listen to the calm rhythm of his breathing forever. 

A few minutes later, Corvo’s murmur came so lulling on the ears Daud thought it a miracle he was still awake.

“Tell me about Tyvia.”

Daud gave a curt hum of mild surprise. “Tyvia?”

“Yeah. How long have you stayed there?”

“A few years. Why?”

Corvo shrugged, as successfully as their position allowed. “Did you like it there?”

Daud took a moment to think. “I guess, yeah.” Aside from all the psychological mess running through his head in those few difficult years, he supposed he did enjoy his time there.

“Tell me.”

“Well—” Daud sighed, thinking back. He thought of the nature, of the place itself—it was a beautiful country. “It’s cold. Not all the time—summers can get pretty warm, but other than that...” 

He paused, thinking that this was the worst, most boring description he could give—everyone knew what the climate in the different places of the Empire was, it was no secret by any means.

But Corvo didn’t object or interrupt, just listened. Maybe it was alright, Daud thought. Whatever. He wasn’t a bloody poet. 

“Lots of snow,” he continued. “Lots of trees, especially if you go more inland. Lots of... nature untouched by people. It’s nice.”

Corvo hummed out his understanding. 

“I’ve never been there,” he said, then went quiet for a moment. “I mean, I have, but a few hour-long trip from the Dabokva harbor to the Citadel and back doesn’t really count.” 

That was from the time of the search for the Rat Plague cure, Daud deduced, but refrained from commenting in order to not stir up any more unpleasant memories. 

“I’ve never,” Corvo went on pensively, “traveled on my own will, on a whim. It’s always been someone else’s idea, some duty, some happening. First, Theodanis sends me to Dunwall, then there’s the crown’s constant meetings with ambassadors, then this coup forces me to go back to Serkonos. I’ve never... had an opportunity to just pick a place and say, ‘I want to go there,’ and just go. Just because.”

Daud supposed he could understand. 

“You want to?” he asked. “Go somewhere specific?”

Well, he supposed that was why Corvo was asking in the first place.

Corvo shrugged once more, though a ghost of a wishful smile played at his lips. 

“Always wanted to go to Tyvia, I guess. Even in childhood. You spend years baking in the Serkonan sun, lush cold forests begin to sound appealing pretty damn fast.” He breathed a soft scoff. “Even just out of curiosity. It must be so different, even just the lifestyle.”

 _It is,_ Daud almost said in response, his eyes glued to Corvo’s half-lidded ones. It was so clear now: Corvo was a dreamer. Always has been. For some weird reason, the thought spilled in Daud’s chest with pleasant, viscous warmth.

“I’d take you there,” he muttered instead, and realized what he said only post factum, when there was no taking it back. And he wouldn’t, anyway. It was the truth, no matter how unattainable and impossible the prospect. 

Corvo breathed a soft huff and smiled, small and warm—Daud wasn’t sure if it was the way the shadows fell, but he thought he gleaned a tinge of sadness in it, as well. 

There wasn’t enough time to make certain because Corvo shifted, somehow twisting in a way that allowed him to tuck his head under Daud’s chin. He sighed into his chest, and Daud returned his hand to Corvo’s back to resume drawing his lazy patterns over his skin. Daud didn’t know for sure but he suspected that this was the most peaceful night he’s had in years, and, soon throwing that thought out of his head, he gave himself fully over to the gentle indifference to everything that wasn’t the most present instant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> h  
>  ~~enjoy while you can lads~~


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That took entirely too long for my liking, I'll try to get back on track speed wise, ugh

“You know where to go to find Delilah, but how will you handle her? It is my hope that you have some sort of plan.”

As the _Dreadful Wale_ inched closer and closer to Gristol, with a couple days at most left of the journey, more and more things worked to drag Corvo out of the peaceful haze of his mind. More and more things reminded him of the fact that stress and worry scraped at his brain and buzzed in his temples, expanding rapidly as time passed. This was also the same time when dread settled over the ship in a thick cloud of fog not unlike those that so loved to cover the ocean, this was also the same time when everyone seemed to quiet down. Even though they tried not to show it. The feeling was so tangible the air was stifling—no one wanted to return to Dunwall, no one wanted to stir up their past all over again. 

Well, too bad. This wasn’t about any one of them.

Corvo felt it in Billie, he felt it in Daud. This communal agitation did not do much at all in helping to distract him from the unwarranted thoughts: what exactly happened to Dunwall? What did the city look like now? Did Delilah dare to lay her finger on the citizens in any way?

Sokolov seemed to be the only one without any restlessness or nervousness in him, just the calm, thoughtful resignation inherent to anyone who’s seen and went through as much as he has in his lifetime. 

Corvo traced the rim of his cup. The tea in it has gone cold, by this point it seemed tasteless. As soon as he’d noticed that too much coffee made his jitteriness spike up even more, he’d switched to tea just to occupy himself with something.

He drank so much tea.

“It could be tricky. She might not give me any choice but to fight,” he replied to the old man. Oh, he thought, he certainly _had some sort of plan._ “And Delilah deserves whatever she gets.”

The one thing that had a chance of occasionally distracting him from Delilah’s ills was the anticipation of burying a blade between her ribs. 

Sokolov sighed, and Corvo heard the disapproval even before he started speaking. Corvo cared little about it. Sokolov saw right through his euphemisms, he knew. He wondered why he even bothered to use them at this point.

“At my age, I’ve come to distrust words like ‘deserve.’”

That almost drew a scoff out of Corvo, but he held it back out of the respect he held for the man. 

“That’s all well and good,” he said, scratching the back of his hand, “but don’t even try to tell me she doesn’t _deserve_ to be eliminated.”

Another sigh from Sokolov. “I remember her still, from all those years ago. Badly wounded deep at her center, but cunning, and looking for a way to pull herself up. Perhaps more than anything, Delilah had a talent for imagining the world as a better place.”

“Oh did she, now?”

Only for herself, maybe.

“Believe it or not. If only that could have been channeled towards something less twisted.” 

“Too late for regrets,” Corvo said, the thought planted in his mind firmly like a boot in the mud. “Looks like she wasted all of her chances to do that and then some.”

As for the other chances—she wouldn’t be getting any. Corvo could easily outline what she did and did not deserve, and it wasn’t pretty.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.” Sokolov sounded pensive, his gaze unfocused.

*

Corvo tried not to think about anything in Daud’s arms at night.

He tried not to think about what in the Void they were going to do when everything was finished.

He felt it, too. In the way Daud seemed to hold him tighter and tighter as they moved closer to the dreaded arrival. In the way Corvo seemed to do the same, unconsciously, in return. He felt it in both of their visceral desperation, felt that this wouldn’t last.

He tried not to think and was failing spectacularly at it.

The doubts and intuitive suspicions clawed at his chest and, afraid to say them out loud, Corvo tried to smother them instead, breathing heavily and almost feverishly into Daud’s neck, trying to banish the clammy advancing feeling of how this temporary security and stability was slipping through his fingers.

Running out.

It did no good to either one of them, this intuitive pessimism, this… fear of uncertainty of what would happen when they stepped off this boat. They didn’t speak of it. While Corvo wished that they did, even yearned for it, that wish was overshadowed by the risk of making this worry real by voicing it.

As if it wasn’t real enough already.

It seemed that all Corvo could do at the moment was press into Daud, cling to him, keep his lips on his skin and his hands on his body in a hold that’s become more possessive in recent times than he thought was reasonable.

Daud wrapped his arms around him in return, and Corvo almost wished his embrace wasn’t so tight so it wouldn’t make him feel like they were trying to get as much as possible out of being with each other while they still could.

Minutes later Daud was carding through his hair, petting it, the gentle motions soothing not only to Corvo, but seemingly to himself, as well. Corvo turned his head slightly to shift further into the contact and give more access, gradually forcing himself to relax as some of the knots of tension in his chest were slowly, temporarily, being unwound. 

A deep sigh rocked through Daud’s chest like a calm and yet powerful wave.

“You ready?”

Corvo didn’t know what Daud meant specifically, and suspected that it was everything at once. Arriving at Dunwall tomorrow, facing Delilah, facing the truth of what was done to Emily and whether she was even still alive, because he could tell himself whatever he wanted all he liked, but he had no way of _knowing;_ pulling the capital back up to its feet with all the newly gained knowledge and outlooks, involving the crown more in matters of Serkonos as well the other isles, figuring out where this little _Dreadful Wale’s_ crew, where Daud, fit into his life beyond Karnaca and beyond this boat.

If anywhere at all.

“No,” Corvo rasped into Daud’s neck and felt the latter heaving another sigh.

“It’ll all be over soon.”

Corvo chose to think that Daud was talking about the mess Delilah has created, and nothing else.

“You know that’s not true,” he mumbled in reply nonetheless. There was so much to do, so much to fix, so much to consider and think about he could barely fit it all in his head. 

Daud gave a pensive huff.

“It’ll be easier,” he said. “You’ll see your daughter soon.”

Corvo couldn’t argue with that. Seeing Emily alive and well—with all his might he was forcing himself not to think of any other possibilities—would lift a major portion of the weight off his chest.

How could it not, when it was all that mattered, when it was why he was doing any of this in the first place? His child was his purpose. Without her, he’d have none.

Really, everything else was so pathetically insignificant by comparison. By design.

“I miss her,” Corvo whispered after a long moment, the words like a punch to the stomach as the fact that he was forced, torn, away from her in the first place, knocked the wind out of him all over again.

With another, softer sigh Daud pulled him even closer and pressed his lips to the top of his head, nuzzled his hair. “I know.”

The fact that Corvo _allowed_ it to happen wasn’t made any easier, even despite all the time that’s passed and all he’s done since then.

“I miss her so much. So much.”

Daud raised Corvo’s head slightly by the chin, so he could brush the hair away from his forehead and press a long kiss there as well. Corvo left his eyes closed, soaking in the contact with a shuddering breath.

“I don’t know what I’d do if—”

“Shh.” Another kiss at his forehead, so tender and affectionate Corvo might cry. There were so many things he didn’t want to let go—this was one of them. It was terrifying. “Don’t think about that.”

Corvo swallowed a lump in his throat, gave something of a weak nod, and laid his head back down on Daud’s chest. The rhythm of his heart right at Corvo’s ear has become something of a lullaby in the past few days; now it worked its soothing magic to draw out these confessions that were difficult to keep contained in the uncontrollable swirl of emotions in his head.

“When you told me you saved her—” he began, whispering, lulled by Daud’s hand back in his hair, “Void, that feels so long ago. I— Everything turned on its head. You know that? Everything.”

“Corvo…”

“You saved me. I could have lost her. I could have lost the only thing I had left. She’s all I have, Daud. She—” A trembling sigh cut his words off; Corvo shut his eyes tight, shifted to bury his face in the crook of Daud’s shoulder.

Daud planted a hard, almost feverish kiss on his temple, then another, holding him ever closer—Corvo responded in kind on pure impulse, clinging to Daud as tightly as he could, clutching a lifeline.

“She’s all I have,” he muttered into Daud’s neck, his voice somewhere absent and far away. “My girl. My little girl.” 

“She’s alright, Corvo.” Even in a whisper, Daud’s own voice sounded close to breaking. “She’s alright.”

Corvo had neither energy nor wish to argue, to say that Daud had no way of knowing that, that they had no idea, but he chose to believe him and it almost felt like the truth, it almost brought him the peace and assurance he so desperately needed.

He heaved another shuddering sigh and tried his best to empty his mind.

*

Autumn advanced from the north—grey clouds closed over Dunwall in a blanket, trapping it, smothering it. The sight was incredibly familiar, only, after weeks spent in sunny Karnaca the sudden change of climate hit hard. Dunwall Tower stood as menacing as ever on its own respective cliff, the moon shone down on it in a cold dim glow through the tear in the thick curtain of clouds, and Corvo had to wonder after all whether this place always looked this gloomy from the oceanside at this time of year.

For the last time, it seemed, Sokolov had told them to watch themselves—and Corvo had refused to say goodbye. They’d see each other again soon. He’d make sure of it.

For the first time in weeks, the ride in the skiff was uncomfortably tense. Silent. 

Or so it was, at least, for a while until Billie exhaled the smoke from her cigarette and stared blankly out on the murky restless water overboard. 

“I made a vow I wouldn’t come back here,” she said, somehow pensive and quiet as if she didn’t dare disturb the foreboding air around them, “and that’s twice I’ve broken it for you.”

Once, Corvo might have scoffed acidly at the notion.

Part of him wanted to object, but he held his tongue. No, it wasn’t for him Billie has broken that vow. He didn’t think so.

They all had debts they needed to settle with this place.

Daud was silent, and Corvo was tempted to ask for a cigarette just to try to soothe his nerves.

“Just give us some time to leave before you place a bounty on our heads when this is all over, eh?” Billie muttered, sarcasm drying her voice, throwing Corvo a glance with a shade of a smirk on her lips. 

Corvo didn’t feel like laughing. 

Daud was still silent, still staring blankly ahead at the water, and Corvo had to repress a shudder from the chill at his spine. He knew, the closer their—Billie’s—ship had moved to Gristol he’d felt that as soon as they stepped on shore something between them would change. He knew, and yet seeing it actually happening and living through it was difficult to no end. Daud said nothing and Corvo felt a clenching in his chest, an utter desperation of dumb hope that maybe this silence meant nothing and his stress was just making him imagine things. 

“Yeah, well, let’s see if the guard force is still in operation at all, first and foremost,” Corvo forced out in reply. As much as he hated Billie’s half-serious jab, he made himself see it as her nervous attempt at lightening up the mood. The concern he brought up was substantial, though: with Captain Ramsey’s betrayal and Lieutenant Mayhew’s death Corvo had no idea who commanded the City Watch, or what its current state was in the first place. Ramsey had had influence and a great deal of men under his command, but, surely, not all of them had turned their backs on their Empress?

On second thought, due to the ramifications that defiance would have likely brought on those people in the ranks and their families, Corvo wasn’t expecting to find very many supporters.

He still thought it a shame that he’d had no time to deal with the traitors properly on the night of the coup. 

Void, he hoped like nothing else that young Jameson Curnow managed to make it out of the Tower when it went down. Everything had happened so fast Corvo didn’t even see him in the mess—he was supposed to be formally stationed with the rest of Emily’s advisors, surely he wasn’t nearly as stupid as to stick around when everything turned on its head. The boy was resourceful, he wasn’t Corvo’s chief agent for nothing. Corvo held on to faith that he made it out and reached his family—upon Delilah’s fall, the Curnows would be some of the first he’d be reaching out to. 

His mindless musings about what he could expect to be met with were interrupted a while later as the skiff slowly approached the rocky shores.

_“Take me to Dunwall Tower. Bring me back to the cage of my own chest.”_

Corvo found it was easier to handle Delilah’s soul like this, out in the open air, with so many things around him to serve as distractions if need be. This time, the Heart’s remark acted as a focusing lens, a grindstone for the blade’s edge of all his stress and frustrations, and he found he even welcomed its voice. 

Uncaring about making himself look like a lunatic—Daud was aware, and Billie… They’ve spent enough time together in an alliance as strange as it was for him to be able to afford to not bother with keeping up appearances; besides, she knew he had a container, of sorts, for Delilah’s soul—Corvo took the Heart out of his breast pocket and held it in his hands. He’d hardly spared it a glance when he took it with him on this final stretch of their journey, so the inky, black petroleum-like coating of corruption spreading from the glass window outwards over the organ was a new sight. He didn’t dare touch the substance, only grimaced in disgust. 

_Oh, I will,_ he replied in his mind, and the Heart throbbed in his hands as if in some sick sort of anticipation. _Delilah will be made mortal again._

What followed was pure, unbridled, familiar spite. 

_“You let Emily’s mother slip into oblivion,”_ the Heart hissed and Corvo sucked in a loud breath, feeling the searing desire to silence that lying voice forever spilling into his blood flow, pumping in his veins. He paid no mind to the odd stare Billie fixed him with. _“Do you know where my mother’s resting? In a child’s coffin, her skinny legs tucked beneath her, because I couldn’t afford a proper burial. While my father rests in the Imperial Crypt.”_

 _You’re lying,_ Corvo shot back, though his lips soundlessly mouthed the words. Such useless words, it was futile to even bother with indulging the Heart, but he couldn’t help but clutch that spark of hate in his grasp, allow it to move him forward faster and more relentless than he would otherwise. 

How ironic, he thought, that Delilah’s own soul was quickening the approach of her death.

 _“You still can’t accept it.”_ Frankly, Corvo couldn’t give less of a shit whether she was lying or not. It didn’t matter. _She_ didn’t matter. _“You were sent to Dunwall as a gift, like a box of candies, because that’s all you were worth. I inhabit your lover’s heart, and my body sleeps in your bastard daughter’s bed.”_

Huh, Corvo thought, if Jessamine’s bed had still been in the Tower to this day, would Delilah have slept in hers and Emily’s both? Would she have been switching from one to another with each new night? The thought amused him.

He’d burn Emily’s sheets nonetheless. He’d purify the whole damn Tower if he had to.

 _“No answer?”_ The Heart sounded almost disappointed. _“Struck another nerve, did I?”_

Adorable. 

Corvo only smirked, wry and crooked. 

*

Corvo was antsy.

Well—they all were. That was no secret.

Still, Corvo was antsy, Corvo was tense; most of all, Corvo was angry—Daud saw it clear as day. Not that Corvo was trying to hide it, though Daud wasn’t sure how much he was registering that it showed on his face and in his body language. Daud didn’t question this anger, didn’t blame him—the man had every right. He only hoped it wouldn’t make him take a wrong turn somewhere, so close to his goal.

Dunwall looked… mostly as he remembered it. At least from the outside. Hard and cold and grey. Daud didn’t want to think about anything involving this dung heap of a city that wasn’t the immediate objective at hand, and so he shut out that part of his mind and focused on what was currently relevant.

The three left the skiff fairly hidden and climbed over the city walls, and now all the hardness and coldness and greyness around them was stifling. 

Judging by Corvo’s reaction, however—even with the mask Daud could tell that he was very far from being in high spirits—the streets’ deathly atmosphere wasn’t normal. Daud couldn’t make many judgments of his own here, due to his having no idea what the atmosphere of this place has been like in the past fifteen years.

And yet, aside from the wind and at times eerily violent rustling of trees, it was unnaturally quiet.

Sure, it was nighttime and thus it was logical for most people to be staying in their homes and sleeping, but if there was one thing Daud remembered about Dunwall, it was that this city never slept. 

It was no surprise by this point, he supposed, that the mix of power and the power-hungry did not lead to very pretty results.

The rails and lampposts had been switched off—without any sources of manmade light, the familiar crackling of electricity, and the whir of automatic machinery, the street just seemed dead. Withered down to a husk.

What was Delilah trying to achieve?

What was she trying to accomplish with this childish, theatrical display of artificial despair of the people here?

The notion was only reinforced in the next several minutes. The deathly silence was punctured with a crackling echo, and then a short, high-pitched ringing as the loudspeaker’s microphone was getting tuned up right before an announcement. Billie furrowed her brow, Corvo stilled and tilted his head slightly to listen.

Really, Daud didn’t know what he expected. 

Certainly not _singing._ Though, with Delilah in charge he thought he really shouldn’t be surprised. 

_“After sparrows three times call.”_

Billie wrinkled her nose in a grimace, part bewilderment part revulsion. 

_“After gull does three times fall. Come, maiden—”_

For a few moments as the female voice dragged on in its slow, slightly off-tune melody, Corvo was as still as one of Delilah’s very own idle statues.

_“—mistress, mouse, and hen. Come, fisher, farmer—”_

Oh, Daud could picture it now, clear as a bloody painting—Dunwall Tower teeming with witches, vines and ivy covering anything and everything reachable, sickening smell of dampness standing thick in the air as if all those women were frogs in a fucking swamp. 

Yes, if there was one thing that this strange and quite unpleasant singing voice on the loudspeaker told him, it was that the current state of authority and order in the Tower was very, very far from ideal. 

As evident by Corvo’s body language, Daud had no reason whatsoever to inform him of that. Corvo understood everything perfectly well himself.

Perhaps Daud could have expressed his empathy, if it even mattered here.

_“—frog and wren. Once a king dressed in red, warmed by the flames on feather bed—”_

“Fucking shit,” Billie spat and began moving again, displacing onto a higher roof in the front and with her movement making Daud and Corvo unfreeze and follow after her. “It’s gonna feel so good to shut her up.”

“If she doesn’t before we get to her, that is,” Corvo ground out through clenched teeth. 

Billie gave an offhanded huff. “Birds chirp while they can.”

Not too long after, they crossed over to what looked like one of the main streets, with a familiar and yet such a different layout, where Corvo slipped without a word into an open window on the top floor of a building, right below a giant sign.

 _Dunwall Courier_ office.

Daud didn’t know whether Corvo expected them to follow or not, but while Billie went to scout ahead he stayed on the eaves outside and lit a cigarette, scanning the spacious interior through the Void to find only a single man behind one of the large desks, to whom Corvo made his way almost without any caution or attempt to remain unseen. The two men were close enough to the wall to be heard through the open window, and even though there was no one else around, the lack of caution Corvo was exhibiting clearly looked to be stemming from his complete confidence in the situation, and in no way brashness. 

“Lord Corvo?!” the man exclaimed. “Can it be?”

As always with these matters, Corvo went straight to the point. Daud’s come to respect that about him.

How interesting it must be, he thought then, and wonderful, to see this man at work in his orbit, over his duties, at command over his men. The first to share the roles of Royal Protector and Spymaster both—all the issues with such a situation aside, Corvo had to be given massive amounts of credit…

“…I know how to beat Delilah now,” Corvo went on and Daud tuned in to the conversation on the other side of the wall again. “I’m going to topple her and find a way to help my daughter retake her throne.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long while. You’ll have my support. Whatever you need, just ask.”

…And if the awestricken relief in the _Dunwall Courier’s_ editor-in-chief’s voice was any indication, Corvo was given that credit every day by Dunwall’s citizens.

An easy, melancholic smile tugged at Daud’s lips. 

If there was one thing, anything, he could do for this man at all, then he would help give his home back to him.

“Once it’s safe,” Corvo told the editor-in-chief, “just tell the public what happened. If I come out on top, I’ll invite you to Dunwall Tower to conduct an interview.”

“Certainly. I’ll be eagerly awaiting your call. And, please, Lord Corvo— be careful.”

“You too, sir. These are difficult times; we can’t afford to lose any more good men.”

Another round of goodbyes and good-lucks, and Corvo was back outside. Daud flicked to him a sidelong glance, then watched as Corvo lifted his mask and, with barely a second’s hesitation, reached over to pluck the cigarette out of Daud’s hand. Daud let him, with no objections; just watched as Corvo took a long drag and visibly shuddered, closing his eyes. 

The shudder translated into the heavy sigh that he exhaled right after.

A long moment later, he handed the cigarette back, squared his shoulders, pulled his mask back over his face, and with a grunted _let’s go_ started again on their way.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tiny warning for a tad of mildly sadistic torture in here 
> 
> Though you can’t tell me it hasn’t been building up to this

Corvo wanted to roar. 

Corvo wanted to punch walls until his hands bled, he wanted to scream, he wanted to round up every single witch and kill every single one, slowly, make every single one suffer for it. 

He did none of that as he stared in dumb shock at a dozen or so of the City Watch strung up to lampposts and makeshift gallows in this dead-end street.

Fury boiled in his ears and washed over his vision with red.

His men. 

Dunwall’s men. 

The stench came from a mile away. The wind did nothing to disperse it, only carried it over to the neighboring streets as the bodies kept and kept on rotting. Corvo estimated over a month since the “execution”. 

The coven didn’t even have the decency to cut them down. The thought almost made him laugh—it was outrageous to think they had even a shred of it in the first place.

Several dead Overseers lay on the cobblestone, flies circling over them like vultures, their masks gathered in a neat pile by one of the gallows’ posts. These men didn’t get any rope, these men went down fighting. Corvo didn’t know, nor did he care, whether the hanged City Watch officers had stood in defiance against Delilah or had sided with Ramsey on the day of the coup and died anyway when she had no more use of them. It didn’t matter either way—Delilah wanted to spread her witchcraft like the plague and needed no one but herself and her coven to do that; everybody who has ever lived has wronged her simply by existing and all deserved to die. Of course.

Trying not to gag on the smell of rot, Corvo got to work on cutting the strained withered ropes. One man fell down with a dull thud, another woman— No, they were men and women no longer, just sacks of dead flesh and bone now, rag dolls on display. 

The acrid air and bitterness both stung Corvo’s eyes like needles even under the mask and he flinched when a hand came to rest on his shoulder. He had to keep himself from reflexively shrugging it off. 

“Corvo—”

_Yes, we have no time for this. Yes, it changes nothing. Yes, I know._

“Help me with these,” he only uttered and resumed his duty. 

One more thud, two more thuds, then Daud breathed a barely audible sigh and joined him.

*

Billie returned after a while from her scouting run; told that the easiest way to get closer to the Tower seemed to be through the Coldridge Canal, seeing as the streets were teeming with witches and surely they didn’t want to waste time by cutting each and every one to bits on the way.

Surely.

Corvo thought back to how stripping Ashworth of power with the Oraculum had scattered the energies of the rest of the witches in the Royal Conservatory, leaving nothing in their wake. He still wasn’t sure how exactly that happened, and it wasn’t like it mattered. Machinery or no, a bolt straight in the heart of the system must be sufficient to at least weaken the whole thing. And Delilah was one such big heart.

Scaling rock walls was a task dramatically different than traversing rooftops, even with the Outsider’s powers. To the newly forming calluses on his hands Corvo paid as much attention as he would were they entirely nonexistent; with the coating of dirt and sand that got under his nails and into the small scrapes on his skin bad enough already, all other minor annoyances only kept adding up and were, at large, insignificant.

The walls of dusty rock rose higher and higher to turn into those of smooth grey stone and soon Corvo could see most of the front yard of the Tower. There was strange chanting; it was distant and quiet so Corvo didn’t bother with trying to discern the words as his eyes immediately fell on the only source of light in the area. 

Well—he saw the smoke first, then came the fire. Four—those he could see right away, anyway—witches stood around a large bonfire closer to the side housing the gazebo, loitering as the flames devoured what seemed from the distance to be large blocks of wood. Upon magnification, Corvo made out articles of furniture of various sizes: wardrobes, dressers, small tables, sofas, rolled-up carpets. Lots of those stood idle, awaiting their turn in the fire. All from the Tower—from its foyer, the hallways, the guest chambers, the lounge quarters. 

What was the _point_ of this cleanup?

Corvo didn’t waste time on trying to figure out the logic of the witches’ petty sense of symbolism and silently motioned to the Tower’s entrance that was guarded by a couple more women, each with a gravehound companion. A few more of the beasts patrolled the courtyard, with the witches around the bonfire standing on the far side.

Neither of the entrance-guarding witches noticed the three vultures on the eaves above them right before meeting their quick, simultaneous deaths—a bolt into the back of the gravehound’s head, a transversal down to the ground, a blade in the side of the neck, a pivot, a downward thrust into the slowly reanimating beast’s skull. The crackling of the fire and the near indiscernible chanting coming from the opposing sides of the courtyard blanketed the sounds of weapons. 

Billie jerked her chin at the bodies, throwing Corvo a glance, and he shook his head. 

_No time,_ he communicated through quickly going to the doors and beginning to pull them open as carefully and quietly as he could. No time to hide the bodies, he told himself as well, trying not to pay much mind to the growing itch in the back of his head, a desire to leave traces of carnage on purpose, to let the witches know they weren’t alone, to make them look over their shoulders, to make them feel hunted. 

To let Delilah know they were coming.

Just as quietly Corvo closed the door when all three were inside, then perked up his ears and swept his eyes around the vestibule he could barely recognize with how upturned it was. The doorway into the foyer was barricaded halfway up by piled furniture, more was knocked over and left in disarray, papers and dust and debris littered the floor. As soon as Corvo looked through the Void on reflex, a voice came from the small adjacent room on the left where two silhouettes burned into his eyelids.

“Fay says Delilah’s up in the throne room, but a few days ago she was spending all her time in that bleak little Overseer Chapel. What’s afoot? What’s she working on?”

The other, a younger and much more cocky voice replied to the first as Corvo settled behind the shattered frame of a grandfather clock by the entrance into the room: “She probably found it funny, using the Chapel as a studio, mixing pigments where those fools used to preach their nonsense.”

By the sound of it, the woman couldn’t have been more than twenty. Give or take. It was immensely irritating, how the young spoke with such haughty disdain, so assured in their place by the side of Delilah’s lies, so assumptive, thinking they had it all figured out with barely any notion of how the world worked in their tiny bird brains. What did Delilah promise them? Power? Recognition? That was all the young wanted these days, wasn’t it?

The witch continued, “But she moved to the throne room once she was ready to start her new painting.”

“Always exciting, when she starts to sculpt or paint,” the other replied pensively.

“Yes, but this one is special. Delilah says it’s going to change everything, the world and all the spheres beyond. Go sneak a peek of it, if you dare.”

That voice and manner of speaking alone was making Corvo’s blood boil. She spoke as if she was Delilah’s favorite, as if she saw the aforementioned painting many times and was therefore an expert on all of Delilah’s plans and machinations. Corvo didn’t know how the coven worked, but he knew pretentiousness when he saw it, and if it was a pet peeve on any other day, now it was simply maddening. 

Someone had to put the girl in her place, show her what tangling with the wrong crowd led to, and it was quite a shame that she died so quickly on his blade alongside her friend, not getting much of a chance at all to learn her lesson.

No matter. Corvo absently wiped the flat of his sword on one of the witches’ sleeve and came back out of the room into the vestibule to find Daud and Billie standing still and looking at him. He couldn’t quite read their faces—he didn’t bother.

“You heard them,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Delilah’s up in the throne room.”

“Lead the way,” Daud said slowly. “Believe it or not, this is our first time here.”

 _Is it?_ Corvo almost bit out in response but quickly got ahold of himself. He jerked his chin at the doorway leading into the foyer. “There’s an elevator nearby, leads right to the—”

No.

“Corvo?”

Corvo didn’t hear his name being called again as he blinked on top of the makeshift barricade in the doorway, crouching in the narrow opening and squinting at the strung-up bodies of Overseers hanging from the foyer’s chandeliers. With a growl boiling in the depths of his throat he made his way down and darted to the grand staircase, mechanically shattering with a crossbow bolt a skull of a gravehound lying next to the two large wooden planks that formed a standing cross at the stairs’ furcation. Yul Khulan’s body hung from the cross, tied by one wrist to the planks, dozens of lit candles and more dead Overseers littering the floor around him in something of a semicircle.

A neat little altar. Another pile of Overseers’ masks on the crust-dry bloodied carpet in front of the display really tied the image together.

Corvo thought it a miracle that his teeth weren’t yet ground to dust with how tightly his jaws clenched together. 

His hands were ice cold. His pulse hammered in his temples, he heard nothing else as he stared at the mutilated body of the best man the Abbey of the Everyman has seen at its head in his lifetime. A close, despite their affiliations, decade-old colleague; esteemed advisor to Emily; fiercely loyal ally; even, dare Corvo call it that, in some ways a good friend.

Now, his corpse wore two bonecharms on its belt in a mockery of not only the Abbey, but also the crown and the Kaldwin line, and everything and everyone affiliated with it.

The sheer effort that it took to not flare up in rage right then and there kept Corvo from thinking in depth about all the long-term implications and effects the High Overseer's untimely death would have on the Abbey's influence and overall state.

The two bonecharms easily came off the belt; just as easily they were hurled across the foyer down the stairs and hit the marble floor with a loud echoing clink. Corvo almost didn’t hear the near silent familiar footsteps behind him—they seemed so distant, so far away. Everything was so far away and muffled and he barely even registered blinking up onto one of the chandeliers (that, already strained from the weight of four other hanging bodies, gave a dangerous creak as soon as he did), then the large balcony above the grand staircase. He almost didn’t remember to check his surroundings through the Void, though even without the Outsider’s powers his reflexes were still far superior to most, which the witch that met him there learned the hard way. She tried to screech, though her scream died in her throat as soon as it formed, and Corvo felt a momentary pang of regret at not letting her raise a proper alarm.

That was alright—he’d get more opportunities for that, he thought as he pushed the heavy doors into his personal chambers only to be met with the utter mess of countless papers and shards and debris covering the floor. In fact, there was one opportunity now, seeing as three more little birds were having a wonderful time going through his things that, by the looks of it, if not picked clean, have already been rummaged through and through many times over.

The first, next to his desk, fell down on the spot, tipped over by a bolt in her head. The second, as soon as her friend next to her met the floor, whipped around with a look of rage and surprise and darted out of the way of the second bolt—Corvo allowed her to, having aimed just a hair off to the side—and with a snarl transversed right into his waiting arms before being hurled onto the floor and pinned down by his knee at her neck. 

She kicked and thrashed admirably, and would have been almost successful in either hitting him or breaking free, if not for the bolt that went straight through her kneecap as though it was warm butter. The blood-curdling howl of pain turned into pure unbridled fury, spittle flying out of her mouth as she glared up at Corvo’s mask with everything she had. 

“You filth, Delilah will _tear you apart,”_ she spat, clawing at Corvo’s leg pinning her down but ultimately fading in favor of crying out in pain once again. Her eyes misted over, she began chanting and muttering something under her tattering breath and Corvo quickly tired of it, slit her throat and rose up to his feet, only superficially sweeping his eyes over the body.

His gaze slid over to the last witch in the room, seemingly youngest of the three, who’s been previously reclining comfortably on his bed but now sat with her knees pressed tightly to her chest, eyes wide with mortal fear and lips parted in a silent incipient scream. When she noticed Corvo’s eyes on her she began mouthing something, shaking her head, scooting back towards the headboard.

Corvo stepped towards her, and finally she began making actual sounds of _no, no, no, no, no—_

What a sweet song this bird sang. 

He felt he could snap her neck with just one hand, so thin and delicate it was in his grip—only the dark green vines protruding from her skin that wrapped around her neck like an artfully arranged noose were rough to the touch. 

“Please,” she cried, and tears already streamed down her face in rivers. Corvo wanted to snort—he didn’t even do anything yet! “Please don’t hurt me, I didn’t do anything—”

The word trailed off into the air when he squeezed her windpipe just enough to still let her breathe but bring her voice down to a hoarse wheeze. Pressed against the mattress she clawed helplessly at his wrist at her throat, eyes wide and filled to the brim with tears and shock and fear from seeing her two friends squashed like bugs, no doubt imagining her own death in vivid hues.

She’d serve well in making some noise.

“You come into my home,” Corvo growled, releasing the witch’s neck and adjusting his grip on his sword, and then his ears rang with her scream that filled up the room as he dragged a slow, deep slice across the inside of her right elbow. “You kill my people.” He pressed his thumb on the wound, slowly pushed it under the skin, feeling it being coated in hot blood as the witch thrashed and wept at the top of her lungs and cried hoarse pleadings and apologies under her breath. Distant, muffled in the back of his mind, Corvo heard something like a commotion arising somewhere far away. He didn’t pay it any mind, though a more conscious part of him rejoiced. “You sleep in my bed.” 

He slipped another digit into the gaping wound and spread his fingers, stretching the skin apart as if with the intention to tear. The blood flowed out so freely it almost seemed to have a mind of its own, seeking escape. The witch whimpered and wailed, unable to move under Corvo’s weight aside from the uncontrollable spasms that the pain forced out of her. 

“Sorry—” she garbled, choking on tears, voice cracking. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“How is it?” Corvo pressed on, grating through his teeth right above her face, pushing further into the wound and watching the witch’s eyes roll back from overwhelming excruciation. “Is everything to your liking? Are the covers warm enough? Is the pillow soft enough?”

“Stop, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please stop—”

“Answer the questions.”

There were no right answers.

The witch clenched her red eyes tight and nodded rapidly, her next scream morphing into a _yes, yes, yes,_ then another _I’m sorry,_ and Corvo left her arm be, seeing as her fingers have already turned cold and numb.

He began all over again on her other arm.

The witch’s exhausted but ever shrill cries blossomed and rose in volume in conjunction with the noise all around.

“...vo!”

“Good, huh?” Corvo replied, his own voice unconsciously growing louder and more ragged, more unstable. “Enjoying yourself, are you? Perhaps you’d like to stay?”

“No, no, I wouldn’t, I’m _sorry—”_

“Corvo!”

“Oh, you wouldn’t? Is the Tower not good enough for you now?”

Stuck in a losing position, the witch could only resume her screaming, her next series of sobs ringing so loud in Corvo’s ears it hurt.

 _“Corvo, stop,”_ a voice hissed, snapped in his ear as his upper arm was clutched in a death grip and he was yanked back from the bed and spun around.

Daud.

Furious and covered in blood.

“Pull your fucking self together,” Daud spat, then with the same steel grip on Corvo’s arm shot a wristbow bolt into the head of the witch on the bed, ending her cries. “You absolute moron. They all know we’re here, now.”

Corvo tried, and failed, to calm his breathing and stop the trembling in his hands. 

“Good,” he only rasped in response and averted his eyes as quickly as he could, suddenly glad to have the mask on his face. Barely a second, and then he blinked out of Daud’s hold towards the doorway, hearing the man swearing under his breath. 

Bodies of witches that hadn’t been there before littered the floor of the balcony; Billie stood in their midst, panting, shooting Corvo a wild eye.

“Shit, man—”

“How’s the situation?”

Billie gave an astonished scoff, then brushed the hair away from her forehead. “Aside from the hordes of witches you brought out, you mean? The elevator’s down. Power’s out.”

Figured.

“They must have messed with the tanks down in security.”

“Any other way up to the throne room?” 

Corvo scanned the disarrayed foyer through the Void for any signs of advancing witches, finding nothing for now. “No,” he absently replied. Nothing they could all use, nothing quick—and he wasn't about to go disclosing to anyone the hidden emergency exits only he and hardly a couple other trusted individuals knew about. They had to turn the power back on either way, the Tower was naked without its security measures. 

“Split up,” he ordered, having given the directions to the security room. It wasn’t far, anyway. He had other matters to see to.

Not sparing even a glance at his partners, not acknowledging Daud calling his name with clear warning in his voice, not hearing anything but the hammering of his own heart in his temples intertwining with that of Delilah’s at his chest, Corvo disappeared into the depths of the Tower.

The Heart laughed.

The dead witch’s garbled pleas replayed, thundering, in Corvo’s mind. 

He shouldn’t have done that. It was wholly unnecessary. 

And yet.

The Tower has been turned into a gallows. With every new body of servants and members of the staff hanging from chandeliers and archways in the hallways that Corvo came across, more blood flowed. And the bodies were many. 

Corvo didn’t stop to see whenever he passingly recognized the pale lifeless faces of those he used to work and live with, those he used to see every day around the Tower—after a while, he stopped looking at faces at all.

The only things that kept his hands from shaking madly were the routine clenching of his glowing fist and the muscle-memory-smooth motions of his blade.

They’ve ruined it. They’ve ruined it all.

They’ve robbed him of everything. His sanity, his city, his home, his family. 

This was the last time that something was taken from him and he would make damn sure the world knew it.

*

Daud should have seen it coming. He should have known a moment would come when Corvo would lose his grip and finally snap.

But would _knowing_ have changed anything? Probably not. 

Oh, no, he wasn’t criticizing Corvo’s lust for revenge—as far as Daud was concerned, for that the man had every right.

The problem was the way it was done. 

Confidence was an unsafe territory in itself, but it became a whole other issue when it spilled over into unabashed, emotion-driven recklessness.

Switching the power back on turned Dunwall Tower into even more of a mess than it already was. Automatic alarms blared everywhere, witches screeched and fought and ran—not very far—and it didn’t take long to figure out that the majority of them were determined to get to their mistress to try to warn and protect her.

It also didn't take long to figure out that Corvo has engaged the usurper.

 _Oh, Corvo, you idiot,_ Daud could only think as the elevator finally took them up to the rooftop. Billie was quiet, almost unnervingly so, acute, dangerous concentration written across her face.

The doors of the elevator opened, and they jumped back into the race to the throne room against the several witches that had already made their way to the roof. Their numbers could have been difficult to deal with, if only most of them hadn’t been simply _running_ and transversing and calling out to Delilah in their cries of warning, that they’ve failed, that they couldn’t hold the intruders back, that _they’re here._

The warnings were useless, anyway—one had to only follow the trail of bodies to realize that the main threat to the witches’ mistress has already hunted her down.

In a brief break from adding even more to that trail, Daud and Billie finally took the chance to burst into the throne room, stopping in their tracks as soon as the scene before them came into view.

Oh, Delilah was good. Almost surprisingly so.

In a mess of flashes and blustering Void particles it was unclear who was chasing whom around this spacious, cluttered, ivy-overgrown hall. Both came together in one huge whirl of pure rage, both were slippery enough to evade one another’s grasp and simultaneously come alarmingly close to tearing the other to shreds. 

Knowing better than to intervene and put Corvo’s health at more risk by getting in the way, Daud could only watch, breath bated and eyes darting after the two rapidly moving figures in the distance on the other side of the throne room. He took a second to throw a glance through the Void behind him, then, having made sure there was no one else that needed to be taken care of, turned his eyes back to the fight. 

Right on time, that was, because he managed to catch Billie by the wrist as she was eyeing the eaves lining the perimeter of the room and was clearly about to make her way up there.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Billie looked at him in astonishment, like it was obvious. “She has to die.”

“Not like this. Give Corvo time.”

“Look,” Billie argued and Daud really did not like the look in her eye, “if he wants to suicide his way through this shit, that’s not my problem. I came here for one thing and one thing only.”

“Give. Him. Time, Billie. She can’t die like this, anyway—”

“Come out, come out!” Delilah’s voice tore through the quiet exchange as she, disheveled and breathless, taunted at the top of her lungs on the other side of the room, and Daud flicked his eyes back to the scene. “No need to hide, Lord Corvo! I’ve waited for so long.”

Billie tore herself out of Daud’s grip and materialized on the eaves, and Daud swore through his teeth. 

Corvo was crouching behind one of the pillars, gulping down an Addermire before throwing the empty vial far to the side. The distraction worked, Delilah’s head turning at the sound of breaking glass, but she immediately whipped around, sprung back, and shot out a lightning-fast barrage of pellets in front of her when Corvo reappeared in her line of sight. Corvo couldn't get out of the cone of effect fast enough, a couple of the pellets ramming into him barely a millisecond prior to his transversing right into the witch, and now they were on the floor, rolling in the dust and the spilled pigment powder, kicking and clawing and battering each other with less than barely any room for weapons other than themselves. 

“I should have killed her,” Corvo‘s roaring was only barely distinctly heard over Delilah’s own, his voice unstable and breaking from pain or overexertion or both, “I should have hanged her from the chandelier in her office and then thrown her body to her gravehound pets and made you watch through your fucking statue—”

His size and strength put him at a significant advantage in close quarters; as soon as he flipped them around to put himself above Delilah he slammed the back of her head into the floor, then took his time to land one, two, three blows on her face—Daud could only assume that Corvo didn’t yet manage to make Delilah mortal and was dragging his time until then.

Or he was simply intent on killing Delilah with his bare fists. Daud honestly wasn’t sure which was more plausible.

Though the fact that Corvo kept hammering her face for far longer than was strictly necessary to, at the very, very least, knock someone into a deep coma, and she kept thrashing and snarling up at him, told him that it was the former.

Too late, too late did he see how Billie appeared on top of the giant painting—which he hasn’t paid any attention to until now—and crouched behind a pillar, aiming her voltaic gun down at the scuffle in the middle of the room.

Daud didn’t doubt her mastery of marksmanship, but he couldn't help but presume that Delilah's immortality wouldn't be enough to stop Billie—perhaps would even encourage it—from sending as many bolts into her skull as she was able, thus impermissibly raising the risk of wounding Corvo in the process.

“Billie, stop!” Daud yelled, and his spine froze at seeing how the warning made Corvo hitch in his movements, how both he and Delilah took a moment to realize that they weren’t alone in the room. Only, Delilah remembered herself a split second earlier, giving her leave to reach her sword that was dropped on the floor a little behind her head and, though with her range of motion still greatly restricted, to swipe an arching strike into Corvo’s shoulder. 

With the clumsy angle and lack of stability in her grip the blade slipped off and then fell out of her hand, but Corvo’s shout of pain indicated that a gash has been left regardless.

Daud saw white, his mouth formed into a snarl in the shape of _enough_ as he—fuck it, fuck it all—clenched his fist and transversed.

The throne room was large, he made it only halfway when Delilah took the chance to attempt to push Corvo off and get away but an enraged Royal Protector was having none of it, barely managing to keep her thrashing restricted as he reached into his jacket and at last pulled out—

The explosion ripped them apart from each other, knocked both Daud and Billie off their feet and practically slammed them into the floor with its siren-like ringing.

When the flash of light from the impact cleared after a split second of eternity and the room began to sharpen back into view, Delilah grabbed her sword and scrambled up to her feet, staggering, weakened, and spat out the blood onto the ground. 

“Lord Corvo.” The hiss of her voice reverberating throughout the throne room was pure acid. “You’ve brought me back my spirit.”

Even from this distance Daud could clearly see the frenzy in Delilah’s eyes when she turned her head and shot him a glare. The sound of the explosion still rang in his ears, cracking his skull in two and leaving him almost paralyzed, so it was no wonder that Corvo could barely move as well. Delilah made use of the moment, sauntered over to him and stepped on his shoulder, pressing on the wound with her heel. 

When Corvo groaned out in pain she gave a solid nudge with her foot and then turned back around, fixing her eyes on the painting from which Billie glared down at her, clutching her head. 

“Come, my dears,” Delilah hissed, and an invisible force raised her up in the air. “Come and see how I will reshape all things.”

The painting tore open and the blast sucked Delilah into the opening, stirring up a gust of wind that raged at the entrance in a storm, the air wailing and curling in on itself. A moment later Billie pulled herself up, then, as soon as she regained her balance, jumped down to the floor and without a second thought darted into the glaring, howling hole of the painting. 

In the same way, though with physical effort, Daud darted towards Corvo, the two next transversals bringing him to the man’s form on the floor. Corvo tore off his mask, flung it to the side. He was panting, covered in blood and dirt, with a groan he clutched his shoulder and sat up.

“Kill her,” he rasped, then shook with a painful cough and finally caught Daud’s eyes. “Kill her, Daud.”

Daud only nodded, somewhat surprised and even mildly honored that Corvo would give up his intention of getting revenge with his own hands and entrust it to him and Billie instead. With a quick, practiced movement Daud fished out a vial of S&J from his belt pouch and tossed it to Corvo, who caught it in his hand with a nod of his own. 

“Stop the bleeding, at least,” Daud muttered, throwing a quick glance of assessment over the gash showing through the torn bloodied fabric. It didn’t look too bad, a few stitches should do the trick. 

Corvo nodded again, voiced a breathless affirmative, and Daud threw him another glance before turning and disappearing into the painting. 

*

When, at last, Billie took the finishing strike, when her sword ripped through Delilah’s neck and her head hit the Void-stone ground, all came to a still. Delilah’s regenerating mirror images, the dust storm, the howling wind, Daud, Billie. As if the world was taking a breath.

They stood, panting, as still as the conjured Void around them. They said nothing. 

A long moment later, with another loud gulp of air Billie dropped her sword onto the ground with a loud clang and bent down to grab Delilah’s severed head by the hair. She barely spared it a glance, walked to the precipice where the Void stone under her feet ended, threw the head into the blank white nothing, and stood, watching it fall. 

*

As soon as the painting closed behind them Her Majesty’s wild eyes landed on Daud and Billie, widening even more with unrecognizing surprise, her lips parted with numerous questions that danced madly on her expression but, evidently, couldn’t yet form on her tongue. Her gaze easily slipped off the two people that just reappeared in her life, and resumed its blank slide around the throne room that looked so different from how she must have remembered it. Down on the floor, she was being cradled in her father’s arms, who was rocking them both slowly back and forth, and only the hushed nothings he was whispering into her hair were filling the room.

Billie stood still, likely not knowing what to do with herself.

Daud stood still, not daring to come any closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *makes jazz hands* *pops open both a bottle champagne to celebrate Delilah’s end and a bottle of vodka to mourn pretty much all the Dunwall Tower’s staff as well as a bunch of other people and also for the fact that Corvo and Emily now have to deal with pulling the city back up to its feet all over again* ....y e a h
> 
> (Psssst, we’re nearing the end, holy shit can you even imagine)


	33. Chapter 33

They had to return to the _Wale._

Even despite the magical preservative effects of being imprisoned in stone for near two months, the time has still taken its toll and Lady Emily was malnourished and confused and so overfatigued she fell unconscious mere minutes into her return to the world of the living. Corvo was horribly jittery, to the point where it was worrying, and it was his idea—no, _demand,_ it wasn’t at all up for debate—to go back to the ship because _they’re dead, they’re dead, there’s no food here, there’s no one here, everyone is fucking dead._

Over and over he kept repeating under his breath something along those lines as if he was possessed, and Daud had to keep himself from snapping at him to shut up, that yes, he fucking understood why they couldn’t currently stay in the Tower, he didn’t have to say it twice. Much more than just twice, really.

As soon as Lady Emily passed out Corvo let go of the reins on his self-control like they burned him. Feverishly hyper, utterly overwhelmed in a mess of lasting adrenaline from torture and entirely too much murder in such a short span of time and the clash with Delilah, pain, anger from seeing the Tower in shambles, relief from getting his daughter back alive and safe, simultaneous and overpowering worry for her health, being at a complete loss about what to do next. It was all written on his face, practically pouring out to the surface; it was no wonder he couldn’t hold himself together. 

The Empress was out cold, Corvo was in shock, Daud was therefore on edge, Billie was grim and not at all happy with this entire arrangement. No one was, Daud couldn’t blame her.

On the ship, Lady Emily was put in Corvo’s cabin and Sokolov was the only one who, not without great effort, managed to get through to the man about how staying by her bedside until she woke up was a terrible idea and how his dire need for sleep and recuperation had to be acted upon immediately. His shoulder was cleaned and stitched up, a mug of chamomile tea that he hardly paid any attention to—he hardly paid any attention to anything—was shoved into his hands as Sokolov went on lecturing about his need to calm down and the harm such frenzies and raised blood pressure brought at his age.

After a while Corvo deflated, a wave of visibly overbearing fatigue crashing into him when anxiety has finally sucked up every last scrap of his physical and mental energy.

Billie, still just as grim, went to bed, and while Corvo was in the lavatory Sokolov pulled Daud aside.

“Stay with him,” he said, keeping his voice down. “He needs a shoulder to lean on.”

Satisfied with the curt nod he got in response, Sokolov retired to his room to return to his interrupted sleep.

Daud waited for Corvo to reappear in the hallway, wordlessly approached and took him by the hand. With Lady Emily resting within spitting distance, the contact sent a stab of misgiving into his chest. As if this was wrong, somehow—and it was, in a way. They never did talk about their intents upon returning to Dunwall, upon Corvo’s reuniting with his daughter. His daughter that would more likely than not remember Daud and order his execution as soon as she came around and met him properly with a fresh mind. Cold sweat threatened to break out on the back of his neck at the thought—though, wasn’t he prepared for this?

No. No, he wasn’t.

He’d planned to bail as soon as Delilah was dead—as soon as he did what was asked of him in the first place. This should have been it. End of the “deal.”

He’d never accounted for all the complications. 

He’d never expected to meet with the Empress face to face once again. What’s worse, while bedding her father and Lord Protector behind her back.

Though, oh, it was much more than just bedding, wasn’t it.

With a light shake of his head, Daud swallowed and pulled Corvo to his cabin. Everything else would wait. Everything else wasn’t relevant, not at the moment, not when Corvo’s current state required all the support he could get.

Corvo followed without question. Corvo was vacant. He stared blankly somewhere off to the side as Daud unbuttoned for him his bloodied jacket, pushed it slowly off his shoulders, careful not to graze the sutured wound. The rest of the upper-body clothing followed; Corvo made no move to help but also didn’t resist. 

Daud couldn’t help throwing a glance over his body in search of any new bruises or other wounds Corvo may have overlooked. Nothing serious jumped out at him, and he started on his own clothes.

Corvo kept standing, then pulled in a sudden breath. 

“Emily—”

“Shh.” Daud shook his head. “Quiet.”

No talking. Just sleep.

He relayed that by turning off the light and climbing onto the cot, scooting closer to the wall to give Corvo more room. With no alternative, the man lay down as well, settling somewhat stiffly on his back. They didn’t say a word.

With the sharp turn of Corvo’s head and the intensity of his eyes fixed on the wall, even if Daud weren’t seeing the dull glow his Mark was giving off he would have guessed that Corvo was staring through the Void at Emily lying in the cabin across the hallway.

After a while Daud had half a mind to tell him to quit it and just go to sleep, but he held himself back in favor of giving Corvo freedom to seek any and all ways to calm himself.

“She won’t go anywhere,” Daud muttered quietly instead, hoping to give some amount of assurance, and then his breath caught in his throat when Corvo found and clutched his hand.

Hard.

Painfully, even, but Daud didn’t object and didn’t move, just tried to relax in the notion that Corvo was finding some solace in his presence. When the tension in Corvo’s grip didn’t lessen after a minute or so, Daud wriggled his thumb free and dragged it slowly back and forth along the side of Corvo’s palm. Rubbing out the strain, bit by bit. Corvo was slow and tentative to respond, his grip loosening and his hand opening slightly, just as he himself seemed to be gradually opening up to attempts at comfort.

At last, Corvo shifted into something more comfortable on his back, and fairly soon, with his thumb running slowly against Daud’s, fell asleep.

*

Daud, however, couldn’t. That didn’t surprise him in the least.

Like a sentry he picked up Corvo’s watch and, twice or thrice, took a few seconds to let the bright yellow outlines of the Empress burn into his eyelids.

As if in reminder to himself that as much as he wanted to turn and, with their hands still woven together, wrap his arm around Corvo, to press against his shoulder, to nuzzle the hair on the back of his head—he couldn’t.

It wasn’t right. With the plethora of new problems dumped on Corvo and his daughter, it wasn’t bloody right.

For as long as he was needed, for as long as Corvo made use of these small moments of relief in times as trying as this, Daud was happy to be here with him. Anything more than that? Now became a conflict of interest. 

This was what he’s been afraid of, wasn’t it. Not having been strong enough to end this in time, being forced to face the fact that his and Corvo’s lives just did not and could not intertwine. 

The painful thing was, he’d known that from the start. The painful thing was that having known that didn’t make bearing it any easier.

The next few hours were spent tired but awake, and with the light already seeping in through the slit in the cabin’s hatch at full force Daud sat up on the cot, rubbed his face with an exhausted groan in the back of his throat, and, careful not to disturb Corvo’s sleep, got up, got dressed, and went up to the deck to get some air. 

That didn’t bring nearly as much relief or enjoyment as doing so in Karnaca did. Here the ocean looked murky, like a large dirty puddle. The sunlight spilled dull and bleak out of the clouds, the sight of Dunwall in the distance brought nothing but gloom. 

He hated this place. He wanted to leave. 

All he could do was turn away from the eyesore and go down into the hull, though the atmosphere there wasn’t all that much better.

Billie was up. She was rubbing her face and blinking her eye awake—good, at least she managed to get some sleep.

“So what now?” she asked as she poured them both tea, her tone flat and not at all inspiring optimism.

Daud took his mug, blew on the drink in attempt to cool it, took a sip.

His words came together to form a tired sigh. “I don’t know.”

A long, stifling pause followed.

Billie’s tea remained untouched. 

“She’ll recognize you.”

Daud stared blankly at the counter. A small spider was making a nest of webs in a crack in the wood.

“Maybe.”

Billie huffed out a sharp sigh of frustration through her nose.

“I’ll take whatever comes, Billie.”

“You already did that once.”

Daud closed his eyes.

“Perhaps that wasn’t enough.”

“It was.”

When he opened his eyes back up Billie’s stare burned into his own. “It was,” she repeated, slower and quieter, grievance welling in her voice. “Damn you, Daud, you’ve suffered enough.” 

The words brought a joyless smile to his lips. “And what are you proposing, hm? Run? Leave them?”

“Yes.”

Daud scoffed humorlessly.

“We could have a life, Daud. It’s about fucking time. All our lives we were robbed of any sort of normalcy, it isn’t too late to change that. It can’t be.”

An alarmingly large part of Daud wanted to agree without a second thought. Go back to the original plan—kill the usurper, reunite the royal family, leave. That was the intention. That was what was agreed upon. 

The part that spoke instead Daud hated for living within him in the first place.

“You were there last night, Billie. You saw the devastation. Are you really just going to dump them on the street and leave now?”

Billie clenched her jaw. 

“They need a place to stay,” Daud continued, “you know that. At least for a bit. While they pick up the pieces.”

“Then go,” Billie said, first uncertain, then, after a moment, tapped her black-shard fingers on the counter and nodded. Determination flooded her voice. “Go. Take the skiff. Get on some ship, get out of here. I won’t have you thrown in prison—or worse.”

“Billie—”

“It’s not your time. But there’re two spots on the scaffold, and I don’t want to die just yet.”

Oh, neither did he. 

And yet.

“You won't,” Daud assured, brow furrowed in alarm at the declaration, but Billie cut him off before he could say anything else.

“If you get the noose, then so do I. We both deserve what we get—damn it, Daud, I'm not letting you go.”

It hurt. It hurt so much.

With the ringing wail of every fiber of his being screaming at him to agree, under the crushing weight of the wish to go while he had the chance, to meet Billie somewhere later and build something they could have but never had, Daud miraculously found some meager scraps of strength to shake his head.

“I can’t.”

“Why the _fuck_ not?!” 

Daud stayed silent, and Billie collected herself and rubbed her face. 

“It’s Corvo, isn’t it?” she decided after a moment, her voice much quieter and devoid of energy. 

Once again, Daud said nothing, and Billie heaved a sigh and shook her head. Her gaze softened, though it was filling up with sorrow. 

“I know he's dear to you, Daud. I understand. Really, I do. But you know full well that there’s no place for you in his life. There just isn't. I’m sorry.”

Daud finally put the mug down on the counter, let out a heavy sigh of his own, rubbed his temples. “I owe him this much,” he said.

“Why?” Billie’s quiet voice was on the verge of desperation. “You helped him, you did as he asked, he doesn’t seem to be holding a grudge—”

“Billie, I’ll be owing him for the rest of my life.” Billie grimaced like she didn’t want to hear it, squeezing her eye shut and raking her hands through her hair. “That’s just how it is.”

He couldn’t quite explain it. It wasn’t just the fact that Corvo spared his life once. It was so much more than that. It was the fact that Daud, at Jessamine and Corvo’s expense, finally realized just how fucked up his life was, it was the fact that all the time spent with Corvo showed him that there could indeed be something better, it was the fact that he was now willing to finally see and accept that.

It was simply the fact that Daud was fortunate enough to know him.

The words hung in the air, and after a long moment Billie hissed out a surrendering sigh and once again rubbed her face.

“You’re fucking impossible,” she whispered, sounding deathly exhausted, and without waiting for a reply brushed past Daud and left the room.

She never did touch her tea.

*

Daud was in the galley again when Lady Emily came out of her room, and he was never as happy and thankful for Sokolov’s presence on the ship as he was now.

The Empress saw the old man first as he and Billie were sitting at the table in the briefing room, and immediately she sounded relieved at seeing a familiar face.

Amidst her mother’s killers.

“Emily. My dear Emily,” Daud heard Sokolov‘s breathy voice and saw out of the corner of his eye how he stood up from his seat, and then the wall hid him out of sight. With the assumption that he and Emily were exchanging a reunion embrace, Daud brought his eyes back forward.

His whole back was tense. A moment or two later, he had to remind himself to take in a breath that he needed now much more than prior. He endured listening to the brief exchange between Emily and Sokolov about how Corvo was still resting, about how she was brought here last night, how everyone on this ship was a friend and an ally to Corvo that have been working with him ever since the coup, and how Delilah was dead. 

It dragged on like the slowest of tortures. Daud was starting to regret that he happened to be here when Emily entered, and couldn’t just get it over with in the same room as everyone else. Now, forcing himself to return felt like the ultimate feat of his life.

Sokolov was finishing up with relaying the “bare essentials” to Emily, and Billie came into the galley to fix a plate of leftover breakfast, only throwing Daud a single tight-lipped glance. Daud chewed on his tongue and, seeing as Emily was now sitting at the table and was already undoubtedly aware of his presence, soon followed Billie into the briefing room.

Lady Emily—Corvo has said she was a spitting image of Jessamine, but Daud caught resemblance to her father immediately—fixed him with an assessing gaze, and Daud tried not to get ahead of himself and give in to reflexive relief from the fact that she didn’t seem to recognize him just yet. 

“Your Majesty,” he nodded curtly, and she nodded politely back, in her eyes simply light curiosity and mistrust of the kind one felt when meeting a stranger. Her attention immediately switched to the plate of food brought before her, though, and Daud and Billie both sat down at the opposite sides of the table. 

“Thank you,” Emily said in the break from ravenous (though still controlled and as well-mannered as she could currently manage) chewing, then flitted a glance from Billie to Daud and back again. Her brow furrowed slightly. “I... You two were with Corvo last night. I didn’t get a chance to give you my thanks, forgive me. I can’t begin to imagine the ordeal you’ve put yourselves through. You are—?”

“Meagan,” Billie replied without a second of hesitation and something coiled painfully in Daud’s chest. “Meagan Foster.”

 _Now_ she hesitated, though then reached out with her flesh hand and Emily grasped it in a handshake. Her expression was guarded, though Daud could tell she was trying hard not to ogle Billie’s black-shard arm. That could be passed off as an eccentric prosthetic, at least—Billie took precautions in advance and was wearing her eyepatch again.

“Meagan is the captain of this ship,” Sokolov supplied. “And an old acquaintance. We discovered the coup while it was still in the works and were coming to warn you and Corvo, but couldn’t get to Dunwall in time.”

Emily nodded gravely, then took a bite of her food and slid her eyes back across the table. Daud had to give it his all not to avert his.

“And—?”

“Daud,” Sokolov simply said, and Daud saw Billie swallowing out of the corner of his eye. “A trusted informant. He entertains valuable connections in Karnaca.”

Daud wouldn’t lie if he was asked straight on. However, if the others wanted to lie on his behalf, he wouldn’t stop them, either.

He stayed still and said nothing; Emily nodded with a curt hum in the back of her throat. Daud wasn’t sure if he imagined it or not, but she kept her gaze on him for just a tad longer than necessary before returning her attention to the food. It was obvious she was restraining herself from gobbling it all at once.

Even though his every instinct told him to remain on guard, Daud couldn’t help another internal sigh of relief.

Names were the first thing that faded from memory. Then went the faces. With so much going on, with her mind occupied by matters of empire-wide scales, with the incredible unlikelihood of their meeting, she simply couldn’t be asked to immediately remember a man who not only looked different than when she last saw him, but whom she saw for a few minutes at most prior to being blindfolded and then sold over to her captors.

Fifteen years. Void, she was only ten back then.

If she remembered anything, it was the sword that tore through her mother.

Emily kept eating and listening to Sokolov who was now going into more detail about what happened in the past couple of months. She was holding up well, Daud thought, though he supposed she didn’t get much of a chance to see all the carnage in Dunwall Tower last night. Though she understood why they had to bring her here, he doubted she yet fully grasped the magnitude of the problems looming ahead.

That was another thing to discuss later. 

After a bit, Emily asked for something to drink, and seeing as Daud was seated closest to the galley he went to fetch a cup of water and brought it to her. She met his eyes, thanked him.

Each time her gaze slid over him Daud felt like he was dipped in an ice bath. The air was oppressive, stifling. There was something about the way Emily was holding the fork, loose but conscious, like any second she could switch the grip and turn it into a weapon. Something about the way her eyes furtively flicked around the room on occasion, betraying her mistrust of the situation and the people she just met. On guard. 

Corvo’s been training her well. 

She had his eyes.

Daud saw Corvo so clearly in her it was dizzying. That slight furrowing of the brow while listening intently. That attentive tilt of the head. That absentminded scratching at the corner of the mouth in thought.

Sokolov kept talking, omitting certain details here and there; Emily kept listening, asking occasional questions and doing a decent job of keeping her expression impassive even though the residual shock from everything going on could still be gleaned through the cracks. Billie, with her head propped up on her hand, listened or at least pretended to, now and again flicking to Daud a skeptical eye.

When the sound of an opening door knocked into the conversation, she was the first to perk up and fix her gaze on the hallway. 

Emily turned her head to look and immediately rose from her seat.

Corvo’s eyes were only for her; in just a couple of strides he was at her side and she was wrapped in his arms like his life depended on it. Emily stiffened, evidently in attempt to keep donned her mask of an empress, unwilling to let go of formal composure in this room full of strangers save for two, but it took mere seconds in Corvo’s tight grasp and the soft, broken whisper of her name to make her relax and respond to the embrace. 

“I’m here,” she murmured, barely audible, and Corvo buried his face against her shoulder. “I’m here now.”

*

The conversation’s flow changed; Billie pulled up a chair for Corvo and took the chance to slip out of the room. Sokolov went to brew some tea, after a while Corvo also got up to join him in the galley to get himself some food.

Daud didn’t know where to put himself, he felt glued to his seat. Like he didn’t dare move. 

He couldn’t go back to his room—Corvo came out of it not too long ago. Going up to the deck was useless, he wouldn’t be able to stay there for long, anyway. He couldn’t go anywhere, really, so he stupidly remained sitting where he was.

He knew he’d be regretting that immensely even before Emily's gaze landed on him once again.

“Daud,” she thoughtfully rolled the name on her tongue, gauging its weight. He looked back at her, easy and relaxed on the surface despite his heart drowning in his stomach acid.

“Have we met before?” Emily asked, and in her calm, critical eyes Daud saw death.

His death.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to make her remember, relive every single second, make her see whom—what—she was talking to. He wanted to run. He wanted to hide.

This was not a helpless little girl. This was a powerful woman. A powerful woman that could, and would, destroy him.

He wouldn’t lie. He’d told himself he wouldn’t lie to her.

He wouldn’t.

But damn it all to the bloody Void, he already escaped certain death once. He didn’t want to face it again.

He wanted to disappear, he wished the Void would swallow him whole, right here, right now, forever, by the fucking Outsider—

“Emily.” 

The moment the Empress’ head turned to regard her father Daud closed his eyes for a second, stifling a violent sigh from feeling like he was just pulled up from the edge of a precipice and saved from falling into the nether.

Corvo walked out of the galley, set his plate on the table and sat down between them. “Did you have enough to eat?” 

The corner of Emily’s mouth quirked up into a small fond smile. “I think so.”

“Here.” Corvo cut off a sizable piece of ham from the one on his plate and put it on Emily’s. She scoffed, her smile grew to a grin.

“Father—”

“Eat.”

Emily chuckled again and complied; Corvo dug in himself, the two fell into mellow familial chatter, and Daud slipped away while he had the chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You lucky son of a bitch” - Billie, probably


	34. Chapter 34

       _But I’m leaving this worry town_

_Please no grieving, my love, understand?_

  
   

   

It took about a week of working around the clock for Corvo to get the impression that things could soon begin looking up.

 _Dunwall Courier’s_ staff got what they were promised and more—with his mind somewhat clear and fresh (there was simply no option for anything less), Corvo, with Emily in tow, wasted no time in paying another visit to the newspaper offices with an urgent request for a team of reporters to document the happenings inside and state of Dunwall Tower. With the interviews from the Empress and the Royal Protector and Spymaster collected, it was only a matter of time before the information was distributed and the call for workers to participate in the cleanup effort took effect. (The witches had nothing to spend money on, to them it was useless, so the Tower treasury was, thankfully, mostly untouched.) The same announcement, though consisting of little detail and mostly essential information that every Dunwall citizen should learn right away, was made on the loudspeaker. 

Corvo couldn’t tell what happened to the remaining witches, though he suspected that feeling the severing of their bond with Delilah made most of them flee.

While Emily remained working with the press, Corvo began the search for old colleagues and allies that went scattered after the coup. To his pleasant surprise _(really, Boss, I keep telling you you should have more faith in your men,_ Jameson said amusedly when Corvo exhibited such), the city hasn’t been sitting on its hands in the past couple of months. Jameson was indeed alive and well and safe with his family, and even presented a list of rough locations of the remaining active agents with their outfits under his command for Corvo’s disposal. Almost immediately Jameson sent out word to his men to convene over the subject of the Empress and Royal Protector’s return.

All his life in Dunwall Corvo has been thankful for the Curnows and the incredible helpfulness and resourcefulness of their entire family, and now was no exception. Geoff, with his countless connections, had jumped back into the loop of the inner workings of the City Watch as soon as word about the coup and Captain Ramsey’s betrayal got out. Though the numbers were difficult to approximate, Corvo was relieved to hear that many from the Watch outfits that weren’t on shift on the day of Jessamine’s death anniversary seemed to also be smart enough to not get in Delilah’s way, stayed at home and didn’t bring too much unnecessary attention to themselves. Seeing as the witches hadn’t been too interested in harming civilians, there was no doubt that with the absence of the majority of the guard force, gangs and crime in general saw a spike in activity. Yet another problem to fix. Now, of course, all the laid-off patrolmen and officers were eager to get their regular jobs back. On top of it all, Geoff agreed without question to come out of retirement to temporarily reprise his role of Captain of the City Watch for the time that the organization took to get back on its feet.

The loudspeakers knew no rest from announcements; information was relayed much faster than and way before it could be printed on paper.

When they weren’t overseeing the Tower cleanup effort, Corvo and Emily were writing condolence letters to the families of the fallen staff and City Watch and Overseers that could be identified. If he were keeping count of those letters, Corvo was sure he would have lost it a long time ago—and they just didn’t seem to stop piling up.

To say he was sleep deprived would have been a serious understatement. 

The _Dreadful Wale_ was the only place where Corvo wasn’t being pulled apart in all directions at once by literally everything and everyone around him seeking answers to the countless questions he couldn’t possibly have all the answers to.

The _Dreadful Wale_ seemed to be the only place he could get some semblance of a proper sleep at night, as short as it was.

Of course, the Empress’ and the Royal Protectors’ chambers in the Tower were first to be brought back into order, and that was where Emily stayed, having spent only two or three nights on the _Wale._ Under guise of being caught up in urgent matters (and indeed he was, it was just that not all of them required his immediate attention specifically at nighttime), Corvo assigned a guard escort for Emily for whenever he wasn’t around. With complete confidence in her being able to handle matters while he was gone—that was one sense of stability in this entire mess, at least—Corvo stepped on deck of the ship he’s spent the past two months on like it was a home away from home, he fell down onto the cot in his cabin like it was the softest bed he’s ever lay in. 

Even though his neck groaned in the morning. Even though his spine demanded a proper mattress to at last stretch out on. 

Those couple of hours in the early mornings, while he was still struggling to keep his eyes open and his brain even remotely functioning, Corvo took immense pleasure in the gentle calm and quiet of this ship and its little crew.

When else would he get a chance to not give a shit about keeping up appearances and not bother to hide just how tired he truly was?

When else would he get a chance to doze right at the dining table, rough wood under his cheek and cool aged ceramic of a mug at his lethargic fingers?

When else would he get a chance to then open his eyes to the remarkably serene sight of Daud sipping his coffee and lazily skimming the lines of a newspaper?

For these few moments of universal languidness and indifference, before his awareness kicked back in along with the worry that’s been persistently present in the past week, Corvo took care to imprint the image in his brain. All the colors, all the familiar scents, all the peaceful sensations.

The worry slipped back into his mind, however, bringing with it the unbidden memories that kept replaying for days now, of how he woke up alone the morning after Delilah’s death and felt that he might die if he didn’t see Emily right then. How, after clutching her tightly for as long as was reasonable despite not being nearly enough, the setting of the situation crashed down on him like a pile of bricks, and only the decades of training and practice in concealing emotions when it counted saved him from exhibiting an outward panic. How tentative relief trickled into him at seeing that Emily hadn’t yet recognized the man that killed her mother. How he suddenly lost all feeling in his ice-cold hands when he then heard Emily pose to Daud the dreaded question.

If he hadn’t intercepted, would Daud have replied? Would he have turned the question into a death sentence?

Corvo never spoke to Emily about her mother’s assassin. He never told her that he’d met him and let him go. Fifteen years ago Emily had had no knowledge of the Knife of Dunwall beyond the whispers of adults here and there, and after that, his disappearance from the city gave no reason to bring him up. 

When Emily was a little older, she of course had begun connecting the dots. Both hers and Corvo’s imperial responsibilities, however, had kept her from delving too deep into the records (that had by then become somewhat akin to urban legends) of the infamous assassin, and Corvo’s unwillingness to talk about Jessamine’s death had kept her questions to a minimum without arising much suspicion from her. He didn’t know, however, if the fairly recent reveal of his powers to her had made her remember and compare it to those she’d seen the Whalers employ on that day in the gazebo.

Corvo would be lying if he said he wasn’t purposefully keeping Emily away from the _Dreadful Wale_ as much as possible. 

That came easily enough—as soon as Dunwall Tower had begun being brought back into working order there was no real reason for her to stay on the ship, anyway. Corvo’s primary account of the events from their work in Karnaca was more than enough for her—she trusted him, he was her father and her closest and most loyal confidant, surely he had no reason to lie to her.

Keeping the truth from her when it hadn’t involved either of them directly wasn’t that big of a deal. Now, the situation was much, much different. 

Whenever Emily asked about something in more detail and he had to trip around corners to omit and change certain things about _Meagan_ and Daud’s roles in all of this, it wasn’t guilt he felt coiling in his gut. It was disappointment in being unable to give these people the full credit they deserved. It was the very real fear in knowing that, were he to tell Emily everything, she couldn’t possibly even begin to understand. Not now. Not with so much on her shoulders.

He didn’t want to lie to her. And sneaking away to spend the nights on the _Dreadful Wale,_ seeking—and finding—comfort and momentary respite from all his duties in Daud’s stable presence, felt like the worst lie of them all. 

*

The tail end of the Month of Nets in Dunwall was getting increasingly chilly, so when Corvo woke up from an accidental short nap in one of the wicker chairs on deck, he was surprised to find that he wasn’t as cold as he probably should have been.

The faint smell of worn leather and the warm weight spread over him like a blanket made an easy smile tug at his lips. He leaned his head to the side, feeling the sheepskin interlining of Daud’s coat brush against his cheek before finally opening his eyes to see the man himself smoking a cigar, standing by the railing not too far off.

It was still early morning, by the looks of it. That was a relief, as Corvo soon needed to return to the Tower.

Judging by the length of Daud’s cigar, he hasn’t been standing here long. 

“What are you doing here freezing your ass off? Take your coat back,” Corvo grumbled as he approached, though made no move to take the garment off his shoulders.

Daud only looked at him briefly, making no move to retrieve the coat, either. “Don’t fall asleep outside in this weather, genius.”

He didn’t look to be cold. Corvo took that as tacit permission to keep being wrapped in Daud’s warmth and scent. The coat was thick, heavy, very pleasantly so.

At the remark Corvo only huffed, surrendering to another smile.

“You looked so beat last night,” Daud said after a moment. “Feel a bit better now?”

Corvo shrugged. “Sort of. Barely.”

Daud puffed out a curl of smoke. “You really ought to sleep in a proper bed, for your own sake.”

“What, you’re tired of having me around now?”

The light half-grin wasn’t returned as Corvo assumed it would be—instead, Daud cast his eyes down as he rolled the cigar on the railing to break the ash head off. 

“Should start growing out of the habit of coming here, you know,” he quietly said. “You’re needed elsewhere.”

The smile slipped off Corvo’s face; he sighed and closed his eyes.

“You think I don’t know?” He rubbed his temples with a light frown. “I know this is just a haywire period. I know it’ll all stabilize in time. I know that. But— I think, being caught up in this for years, I’ve lost sight of just how exhausting all of it really is.”

Perhaps his time on the _Dreadful Wale_ birthed a sort of objectivity, in that sense. Perhaps it showed him just how much mental—and physical, of course—exertion he’s been putting himself through, every day; for the Empire, for Emily.

And it’s been getting harder in the few recent years, too. Despite the terrific state of his health, despite the Outsider’s powers at his beck and call, despite the supernaturally enhanced vitality and longevity, he just couldn’t pretend that age wasn’t affecting him. 

“Well, no use in thinking about all that—you’re in Dunwall now.”

Oh, Corvo heard loud and clear the true meaning of Daud’s words— _you’re back, and so are your responsibilities; stop trying to hide, there’s no point; you couldn’t hide, anyway. You can’t._

_And you can’t lie._

Let it go, it meant; leave these recent events behind and focus on what’s best for the Empire, it meant.

Leave these people behind, it meant.

Corvo pulled in a shaky breath, and suddenly he felt like he could snap in half with the next gust of wind.

“Daud,” he spoke, and had to clear his throat to try to pull his voice out of the sudden hoarseness it dropped into. His mouth was dry; the concern that has been sitting with a leaden weight in his chest grew and solidified as it finally began to take shape on the tip of his tongue. “You, uh—” He winced slightly, as if the words were physically hurting him, and suddenly he didn’t think he’d be able to say them at all. “What will you—”

He pursed his lips and closed his eyes, partly in pain that the prospect brought on, partly in disappointment in himself from being unable to face the reality straight on, out loud. But Daud took in a breath of a sort that spelled the start of speaking, and Corvo thought that maybe he understood, maybe he could read his mind and they didn’t have to talk about any of this at all.

As if.

“Billie’s planning to go back to Serkonos,” Daud said, and the softness, the... apologetic nature of his voice made Corvo only clench his eyes tighter, as if that would let him ignore what was so clear in front of him. “To check on Stilton, probably.”

Corvo’s voice was suddenly so raw and weak he could only manage a whisper. 

“And you’re going with her.”

Daud was silent, and while that was answer enough in itself, Corvo needed to hear it anyway.

“Tell me,” he said, forcing the will back into his words. 

Ah, faking various levels of normalcy. He’d have to get used to doing that on the regular again.

“I am.”

Such a tiny sentence. Such tiny words. Such tremendous pain they brought. 

A joyless, rueful smile made a home on Corvo’s lips and he nodded a couple of times, slowly, as if to say that this development didn’t at all surprise him, no matter how barbarically it ripped his heart in two. 

“Were you even going to tell me?” after a few moments, he quietly asked.

“Of course,” Daud replied, hurriedly, like the idea of the contrary was unthinkable. The apology still dripped from his words, a thick, viscous substance. 

After a minute Daud heaved a sigh, and the strain in his voice betrayed the hurt of his own.

“You don’t need me causing you problems, Corvo. Trust me. You’ve got enough on your plate as it is.”

What Corvo wouldn’t give to have the strength and justification to object, to fight for this, to look for another way. What he wouldn’t give for the circumstances they turned up in to be different. 

And once again, he could do nothing. Wasn’t that a bit of a pattern in his life, at this point?

“Your daughter’s smart. It won’t be long before she figures it out. And then I’ll hang.”

“You don’t know that,” Corvo rasped stubbornly, like some petulant child trying to appear more sure of himself than he actually was.

“I do,” Daud replied simply.

“I let you live. I made the right choice. So can she.”

“You’re not her, Corvo.”

“You don’t know her.”

“You weren’t a helpless little girl when it happened. You aren’t that same girl grown up, now, whose sense of justice is the only thing that can come remotely close to filling the hole of that past helplessness. It’s not your mother I killed.”

Corvo clutched the railing of the ship as if it would help him catch a breath in this growing, dawning hopelessness. 

“You aren’t an empress with a sense of duty to her people. You aren’t an empress who simply can’t allow a criminal who’s terrorized the nobility of her empire for years to slip from her grasp, just like that.”

Daud went on talking as if he had to find every argument, down to the last one, to convince them both that this was the best—only—course of action. Corvo found himself checking those arguments off from some list in his mind. It was all sensible, it was all true. He knew. He knew it so well.

“Billie won’t leave me here. As soon as I’m discovered she’ll make sure she is, as well. My being here places her at a massive risk.”

The list went on. Corvo rubbed the bridge of his nose and left his head in his hand, elbow propped up on the railing. Daud kept speaking, as if all the reasons he went through just now weren’t enough. As if he was trying to prove to himself that he could, and would, eradicate any space for possible argument. 

“Even if none of this was a concern… This place, it— it’ll keep reminding me of all the shit in my life and in turn that’ll keep reminding you of how all of this began—and do you really want that? Even if _that_ wasn’t a concern—how would it work? Where would I go? What would I do? Would you be leaving your Empress unprotected while you run off from the Tower like some teenager whenever you want to see me? Like now?” Daud shook his head. “No, Corvo. No.”

Corvo set his other elbow down on the railing and took his head in both his hands, rubbing his face, raking his hands through his hair, scraping the scalp.

“I just—” he began, with his eyes closed again, because he knew that as soon as he saw Dunwall Tower in the distance he would just start seeing in vivid hues all that Daud was saying. And that would make it all uncomfortably real, even more so than it already was. “I just wish the circumstances we live in were different.”

Daud only gave a soft scoff at that, more sorrow in that single sound than any words could convey. 

A long pause settled, heavy, cumbersome, and Corvo forced out just as heavy of a sigh. 

“So that’s it, then?” His tightened throat bled the life out of the words. Another sigh—a sharp intake of air through the nose. “This… this isn’t how I wanted to part, Daud.”

He didn’t want to part at all. 

Deep down inside, he’d always known that wasn’t a reasonable thing to wish for. 

Daud turned his rueful gaze to him, and the only thing keeping Corvo from leaning into him and breathing him in and feeling him under his palms was the knowledge that, as much as he wished, it would solve nothing. It would only add to the longing, the aching he’d be feeling—no, was already feeling, as if in advance.

“I’m sorry,” Daud said. 

“I just… wish some things were different, you know?”

Corvo couldn’t look at him. He only stared straight ahead, seeing Daud nod solemnly in his periphery, thinking that were he to turn and look at him straight on, he’d shatter. 

“I know.”

They stood in silence, and Corvo kept thinking about how life just kept taking and taking from him.

This was for everyone’s good in the long run, yes; and he was willingly, though incredibly reluctantly, letting it go himself— and yet it still felt like it was being ripped out of his chest by force.

He soaked in the moment like a sponge, all the little details—the cool metal of the railing under his hands, the creaky floorboards, the ocean hugging the body of the ship. The tempting, fulfilling sense of peace that this isolation granted, despite everything. Perhaps, these memories would help him sleep, in the future.

“I’ll miss this,” he broke the silence, yet another sigh formed by the words. “I’ll miss you. You know that? I’ll miss you so much.”

He could barely catch it with his side vision, but Daud smiled, small and light, and huffed out a breath. “You won’t.”

“I will.”

“No. Just you wait. Everything will go back to normal and you’ll be happy and content with your daughter, like it should be. And you won’t care about anything else.”

Corvo shook his head, surrendering to a smile. He couldn’t hold in a chuckle. “Oh, you just know everything there is to know, do you?”

He finally turned to look at Daud, and saw the smile growing on the man’s face despite the sadness in his eyes. “You just know,” Corvo repeated. Taking the leash off his impulses, he leaned closer, cupped the side of Daud’s face and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You just do. Of course.” Then another kiss to a corner of his mouth, feeling Daud’s smile widening under his lips. “And your word is law. Because you said so.”

Daud huffed out a laugh and just that warm and soft sound, just the thought that he was about to lose that forever, was almost enough for Corvo to break. 

“Occasionally,” Daud replied, angling his head slightly into the kisses. 

And all Corvo could do to distract himself from the stinging in his eyes was laugh breathily in return.

“You’re so stupid,” he whispered, shaky and breathless, the only way of speaking he could currently manage. “You’re so—”

The kiss that swallowed the words was chaste and soft and warm, it stole everything Corvo may have wanted to say, and, afterwards, he just stood pressed close, leaning his forehead on Daud’s temple. 

“I’ll miss you, too,” Daud whispered in return after all, and Corvo clenched his eyes shut when Daud kissed him on the cheekbone, as if sealing the promise.

He was going to miss all of this, Corvo thought as he memorized every single detail and sensation and locked it safely away in the depths of his chest. Daud’s warmth. The touch of his hands. The satisfying weight of the coat on his shoulders. 

There was no point in frantically trying to soak in as much of it all as he could, since he couldn’t possibly ever have enough.

“When?” Corvo rasped quietly after a few minutes, and felt the rise and fall of Daud’s chest as he let out a sigh.

“Billie was planning on going in a couple of days, at the latest. Now that you’re aware, though...”

“…she’ll want to leave earlier.”

“Most likely.”

_Will I see you again?_

“Gonna stay in Serkonos, then? Where will you go?”

“I don’t know.”

_I must see you again._

_I must._

“It’s been a good ride, Corvo.”

_Don’t go._

_I know you have to and I don’t want you to._

“Yeah. It has.”

_But what does it matter what I want?_

“It sure has.” 

*

Corvo did not return to the _Dreadful Wale_ that night. 

And the next morning, the ship was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t burn me at the stake just yet folks


	35. Chapter 35

_**Six years later** _

 

“I never did get to ask,” Jameson said, leaning against the desk with his hands in the pockets of yet another one of his spruce jackets as he watched Corvo rummaging his wardrobe, occasionally pulling out clothes to throw on the bed, “why exactly you decided to go in the middle of winter, out of all the seasons.”

Corvo fished out a hanger with a lamb’s-wool cardigan he hasn’t seen in so long he forgot he owned it in the first place. It was in perfectly good condition, though he had no memory of when he had it tailored. Maybe it was Emily’s doing.

He dropped it on the bed as well, on top of the few other articles of warmer clothing that he had. “No reason,” he absently replied. “Why, is there a problem?”

“Tyvia is _cold,_ Corvo.”

“Ah, that.” Corvo scoffed. “It can’t be too bad.”

He could clearly see the amused tilt of Jameson’s eyebrow without even having to look at him. “I don’t know, I wouldn’t be so sure...”

“Look, it’s already the end of High Cold and you couldn’t even make a snowball out of all the snow we've gotten so far.” Indeed, this winter was terrible—it was unusually warm and hardly ever stopped raining. Corvo turned away from his wardrobe to flash a teasing smirk at Jameson. “But you wouldn’t know that. You don’t even go outside these days.”

Jameson scoffed, feigning offended astonishment. “Excuse me! That is entirely not my fault, might I remind you.” When Corvo only cackled, he clicked his tongue in disbelief. “It's already been a year—how much longer are you planning to gloat?”

“I’m not gloating; I’m genuinely happy.”

“Happy about my misfortune, yes.”

Corvo grinned and returned his attention to his packing preparations. “Oh, don’t give me that. You love being Spymaster.”

“I would love it much more if I didn’t keep feeling like— no, if you didn’t keep reminding me, to be more exact, that you just dumped all your paperwork on me and jollily ran off. To _Tyvia,_ at that. By the Void, Corvo.”

“Well, at this point you shouldn’t feel too bad about it. Just accept the harsh reality and move on.” Jameson snorted at that and Corvo examined a couple of merino jerseys he just found. “Chin up, Curnow. You never heard _me_ complaining.”

“I did, actually. All the time.”

Corvo scowled at him, but didn’t get to retort as the doors suddenly opened to let Emily into the room.

“Ah, good,” she announced her entrance. “You’re here.” As soon as she noticed Jameson, she turned to him. “Did he tell you yet?”

He replied, “No, but I didn’t yet ask.”

Corvo raised an eyebrow. “Tell him what?”

“Where exactly it is you’re going,” Emily answered simply.

Suppressing the old habit to roll his eyes, Corvo clicked his tongue instead. Emily’s been using Jameson to spy on Corvo ever since she discovered his secret position of the Spymaster’s chief agent seven years ago, only, these days she was utterly shameless about it.

“For the last time—I don’t know. Don’t you know how vacations work? It’s all sightseeing and aimless wandering from one local famous place to another, really.”

“Oh, so that means you’ll just visit every city and then come back?” Emily raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll stay somewhere longterm, rent a little house... I don’t know, alright? And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you right away. Don’t need the Royal Spymaster sitting on my heels the entire time, thank you very much.” 

Jameson snorted and Emily hummed with suspicion. “I don’t know, Corvo, it’s just that you usually have some semblance of a plan about these things.”

“‘These things?’” Corvo scoffed. “When was the last time I traveled somewhere?” He didn’t even give Emily time to potentially answer the rhetorical question and added a remark. “And political upheavals don’t count.”

“Honestly, Your Majesty,” Jameson chimed in, obviously enjoying having a front row seat at the exchange, “let the retiree have his well-deserved freedom.”

“Exactly. Thank you, Jameson,” Corvo agreed, closing the doors of the wardrobe and switching to folding the clothes on his bed. He’d need to go get a suitcase soon. “I need some time to think, some space to finally stretch these old bones…”

“These old bones? Please, Boss, you’re even more sprightly than I am.”

“Oh, sure, age has affected him alright,” Emily noted. “Made him more dramatic.”

“Hey,” Corvo drawled and she breathed a short laugh. 

“By the way,” she continued, “Wyman sends his regards and wishes you a safe, enjoyable trip.”

Corvo stopped in the middle of folding a pair of pants and turned to her with a frown. 

Wyman was, once again, in Morley.

“I told you about my plans only, what, a couple weeks ago?” Corvo said. “And he already knows?”

“Yeah,” Emily shrugged like it was the most normal thing in the world. “He also expresses his regrets and apologizes about not being here to see you off. Speaking of which, since you’re already actively packing—did you decide when you’ll be leaving yet?”

Corvo ignored the question. “Emily, I specifically asked you to not make a sensation out of this.”

Emily raised her eyebrows. “And I’m not! I only wrote to Wyman.”

Corvo cocked his head slightly to the side, turning his gaze into scrutiny. They were both good at this game of theirs, but he was still better, and Emily soon gave in. “…And maybe told a couple of others,” she admitted after a moment, looking slightly—only slightly—sheepish. 

With a sigh of light exasperation Corvo shook his head and went back to organizing his things. “It looks like I have to remind you again—we don’t want the news about me leaving for a long period of time to get out immediately. We’ve already talked about this.” As soon as the news of his longterm absence got out into the general public, the risk of facing someone who wanted to see how protected the Empress was without him at her side would rise to impermissible levels. Corvo doubted that there would be many opportunists, seeing as Emily’s popularity rose higher among the common folk in the recent years, but he wasn’t going to take more chances than he had to.

Leaving was a big enough risk in itself.

“You’re being paranoid again,” Emily sighed.

“As you should be, as well. I’ve no doubt in Cottings’ competence, but that doesn't mean I’m going to be putting you at risk that can be easily avoided.” Corvo gave Emily a pointed look across the room. “Your life is always on the line. I thought we’ve been doing this for long enough to not have to reiterate these things.”

“It’s only a couple advisors, nothing major.” Emily looked at him for a moment longer, then turned to the other man in the room. “Jameson, could you leave us for a minute?”

Jameson muttered an expression of compliance as he bowed as was customary, then gave Corvo a nod, and walked out of the room.

When the door closed behind him Emily crossed the room over to Corvo. 

“You worry too much,” she quietly said. “The rest of the Tower will know soon enough regardless, you know that. You’ve trained Martha well—you’ve trained _me_ well—and there hasn’t been an attempt at a coup or anything of the sort in years, and, frankly, after last time, I don’t think anyone’s very willing to try that again.”

Indeed, Corvo’s trained Martha Cottings well, if he did say so himself—and Emily couldn’t even imagine just how well. Even Corvo was surprised to realize just how easy he’s been going on Emily over the years, compared to how he approached training her Lady Protector; how naturally and ruthlessly he’s been driving Cottings into the ground. Fortunately for all, Cottings absolutely refused to break or back down, only spread her wings even wider and used the pressure to polish herself into a wonderfully-shaped weapon. Corvo was proud of their combined work and her merit—though, of course, Cottings didn’t need to know that. 

Still, the very point was that, if there was indeed someone “very willing to try that again,” as Emily put it, they’d find no better time to strike than during the absence of the former but still famously untouchable Lord Protector. Unfortunately, there was only so much that could be done to keep said absence hidden.

And besides—Corvo may still be in top shape, but the public’s opinion would soon start to differ on that front if it hadn’t already begun. That was why he stepped down two years ago in the first place, wasn’t it? _The Royal Protector is going on sixty, he won’t be able to properly protect the Empress for much longer,_ people had talked, and, in a way, they weren’t wrong. A couple of decades ago the idea of giving up his position—entrusting his responsibility—to anyone else would have been unthinkable to him, but in this case, going along with the public was the best option for everybody. With a young and capable new Lady Protector by the Empress’ side and the former Lord Protector’s eyes on her at all times, the people didn’t worry, Emily was safer than she ever had been, and Corvo already had a trained and ready successor in place. Corvo wouldn’t be around forever; despite all his skills he couldn’t ignore the effects of the years creeping up on him. 

Either way, Cottings would be forced to take the real test sooner or later, as soon as someone decided to see how protected the Empress was with the change. And if such a situation couldn’t be avoided, it was better to be somewhat expecting and ready for it. Cottings was capable, very impressively so; and yet, deep down Corvo knew that there could never be anyone whom he would fully entrust with his daughter's safety. This was as good as it got, there was simply nothing more he could do—and if he were to ensure that Emily was in good hands after he was gone, he’d need to begin to let go in advance.

“You’re right,” he sighed and muttered in response, and Emily smiled warmly at seeing her father appeased. “Still—don’t go blabbering to people.”

“I don’t _blabber,”_ she said with an offended pout and Corvo chuckled to himself, which Emily mirrored when she resolved to enjoy the blithe teasing. “It’s just— it’s all a little sudden, you know?”

It really wasn’t; they’ve talked about the possibility of Corvo taking some time away from the Tower—and Dunwall in general—in the past. What made it feel sudden, however, was the fact that he’s never really left Emily to her own devices before. And maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal, but it still felt strange to both of them. Maybe even a little scary.

“I know,” Corvo said anyway, “but I’d say I did my fair share of work already, hm? It’ll be fine. You’re in good hands.”

“That’s not what I mean. Of course it’ll be fine.” Emily sighed and wrapped her arms around herself. “And of course you deserve all the rest, I’ve been telling you that for years— But I’ll just miss you.”

A fond smile broke out on Corvo’s face. “Hey, now. I’m not even going far—just halfway across the ocean.” Emily rolled her eyes lightheartedly and Corvo’s smile grew. “I’ll visit. Or—who knows, maybe I’ll grow tired of it all and just come back in a few months.” 

Emily scoffed warmly. “No, I don’t think you will.” Before Corvo could ask how so, she gave a knowing smirk. “I see that look in your eye. Don’t think I don’t know how you’ve been dying to finally start enjoying your retirement for real.”

Corvo raised an eyebrow. Retirement hardly relieved him of his duties, at least in the first few months of it, but still—“Listen, I hope you’re not thinking that I haven’t enjoyed staying here this whole time, it’s just—”

“You don’t need to give me excuses,” Emily cut him off with a smile, then placed a hand on his shoulder and pressed a light kiss on his cheek. “Go. See the world. And then tell me all about it.”

Maybe it was age making Corvo grow increasingly sentimental over the years, but he didn’t even care, just cupped the sides of Emily’s head and kissed her forehead—firm and lengthy. “Of course,” he murmured against her skin. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Make sure to write often.”

“Certainly. As soon as I can, at the first priority.”

Emily nodded, looking satisfied, and pulled away to glance over the clothes gathered on Corvo’s bed. “Will these be warm enough?”

“Yeah, these’ll do just fine. It’s not like I’m planning on trekking through the snow in the woods.”

Emily chuckled at that. “I don’t know, we’ll see…”

*

Thankfully, Emily has long since grown out of her appetency for unnecessary parties and celebrations, or else Corvo would probably have had a farewell procession or something of the sort on his hands. That and the more or less private nature of the occasion of his departure kept the farewell committee humble, consisting only of a few guards and some of the Empress’ inner circle—or, in other words, just right. 

“You sure you don’t want an escort?” Jameson prodded. “Last chance to decide, take it or leave it!”

Corvo raised an eyebrow at him incredulously. “Are you implying something, Curnow?”

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

Corvo decided that he wouldn’t be provoked by that smug, faux-innocent expression. “Watch yourself,” he half-jokingly warned the young man and then called out to Emily who was busy giving some instructions to a Watch lieutenant. “Emily, where is your Lady Protector?”

Emily turned to him and grinned, probably at the impatient demand in his voice. She jerked her chin at something behind him. “Right there,” she said, bells of amusement ringing in the words. “Keeping as far away from you as possible, I’m sure.”

 _Is she, now._ Well, Cottings was keeping herself busy with handing his suitcase—didn’t he give it to a Watch officer?—to one of the ship’s baggage handlers to load it into his cabin. Corvo made his way to her.

“Cottings!” 

The young woman whipped around to face him as soon as her hands were free, reflexively slipping into a loose City Watch at-attention stance, hands clasped behind her back. “Lord Corvo.” 

Ignoring the blaring sound of the ship’s horn stretching over the harbor, Corvo went straight to the point. “If anything,” he began, slowly and clearly pronouncing the words, “anything at all, even remotely touches Emily—”

“—you’ll personally rip the head off my shoulders,” Cottings cut him off gaily, “yes, I remember.”

Corvo raised an eyebrow and hummed. “Good,” he said, and then turned back around when he heard his name being called.

“Corvo,” Emily laughed as she approached, “do you have any more words of wisdom to hand out or are you going to get on your boat? We arrived late as it is.”

“There is absolutely no hurry, Your Majesty,” the nearby-standing baggage handler chimed in. “Take your time. I’ll let the captain know to wait.”

“Oh, no,” she chuckled and turned to smile at him next, “please, there’s no need. Lord Attano’ll be there in just a moment.” 

Corvo scowled at her playfully. “What, you’re so eager to get rid of me already?”

“Of _course_ I am,” Emily dramatically played along. “Because I’ve got nothing better to do, obviously.”

With a lighthearted _tut-tut_ Corvo leaned closer to peck her on the forehead. “When I return, I expect to see the Tower in one piece,” he said, and then slid his eyes over to Cottings standing off to the side. “You hear me?”

“Yes, sir, Lord Corvo, sir.” Cottings gave him a salute that was somehow both languid and over-exaggerated at the same time, and Corvo, not being in the mood to properly respond to the sass, just narrowed his eyes and lightly shook his head.

“Watch that one,” he told Emily, lightly shaking his finger at Cottings, who smirked at the words. “And make sure she does her drills.”

“I’m sure her City Watch training has cemented the drills into her blood already,” Emily said with amusement and turned her head to looked at her. “Right, Martha?”

“Oh, not the City Watch,” the other replied. “Fully the courtesy of the former Lord Protector himself, of course, Your Majesty.”

“That’s what I thought,” Corvo said, and as the ship sounded its final horn, quickly pointed two fingers at his eyes and then at Cottings’. Her smile widened.

“Good luck, Lord Corvo,” she said and he returned her smile with a nod. “Stay safe.”

“Yes,” Emily picked up and patted him on the shoulder. “And enjoy.”

“I will, I will.” 

“Boss, your boat’s going to leave without you,” Jameson chuckled as he came up to them, “and then you’ll have nothing to enjoy.”

“Why, I’ll enjoy your stupendously brilliant company, of course,” Corvo muttered and Emily pointedly clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes. 

“Void, just go already.”

Corvo returned her grin, then looked again to the also-grinning Jameson and added as an afterthought: “But, alas, I’ll have to make do without.”

_“Corvo.”_

“Okay, okay. I’m going.” With practically one foot already on the ramp, he bestowed another peck upon Emily’s forehead. “Bye, love.”

“Bye, father,” she murmured in response, happy and beaming and surrounded by those who loved and would protect her with their lives, and suddenly Corvo wasn’t afraid to leave her anymore.

He gave her a final smile and a squeeze of her shoulder and stepped on board. 

*

The road was long, so very long, but large cruise vessels were more than well-equipped for month-and-a-half long voyages, and it took only a few days for Corvo to begin to treat this journey as the start of vacation. 

With so much free time on his hands, however, he had no choice but to give in to his thoughts, and not all of them were exactly pleasant. 

Mostly, with so little to occupy himself with, his mind began clouding with familiar doubts. Seeing as he could do nothing about his current situation, couldn’t possibly turn back or change course, he didn’t pay them much mind. Such a restricted range of motion was, in a way, freeing, only, refusing to give the doubts the weight and attention they demanded did not make them leave. 

Corvo was sitting in his cabin late one evening after dinner, sipping on a glass of whiskey he’d had brought to him from the bar and nibbling on candied nuts, when, in a moment of impulse—impatience? Uncertainty? Weakness?—he got up and went to the coatrack, reached into one of the inner pockets of his overcoat to pull out a folded envelope, then sat back down in his spot.

The envelope held the first page of an article from a _Yaro Courant_ edition dated a little over two years ago—the news had only been around a month old when Corvo had received the letter. _“Corvo Attano Resigns As Royal Protector,”_ the headline read, with the halftone images of his and Cottings’ faces printed right below. The article itself differed slightly from the one printed in _Dunwall Courier,_ but the facts were mostly accurate.

On the margin beside the print was a single word, written in by now half-faded pencil:

_congratulations?_

Corvo skimmed over the article the words of which he could recite in his sleep, lazily rubbed the thin paper between his thumb and forefinger, lingered with his eyes on the handwritten word. 

He remembered what he thought when he found the small envelope with this clipping while going through the pile of letters brought to him by his chamberlain, remembered himself frowning in bewilderment at the enigmatic message. He remembered scoffing wryly, putting the paper and envelope aside, and soon forgetting about it. He remembered coming back to it later, reading and rereading the return address on the envelope and fruitlessly trying to put together some meager scraps of information or knowledge he didn’t possess. 

The return address on the envelope was a postal box in one of the offices in the southwestern region of Yaro. Despite the anonymity, the sender evidently held no concern for exposing their rough geographical position. That showed great carelessness, or confidence, perhaps, even assurance, in the fact that their identity would quickly be discovered by the receiver.

The fact that Daud thought to send him this little confirmation that spelled _yes, I still think about you_ bloomed its unending blossom in Corvo’s chest to this day.

Two years ago, racking his brains on the potential identity of the mysterious letter’s sender, he’d been very cautions about letting the possibility take root. But he couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried, ignore the utterly stubborn and persistent feeling in his gut that he _knew_ that it could be no other than Daud. He knew and yet he was afraid of knowing—afraid of getting his hopes up, afraid of being wrong after all.

But he knew he wasn’t.

Not letting himself write back had been torture. In the few weeks that he’d spent unsuccessfully trying to make himself forget about the note that kept slipping back into his mind when it wasn’t otherwise occupied, Corvo had gone through an array of emotions he felt the remnants of to this day. Immeasurable joy and relief from the fact that Daud revealed himself, resurfacing grief of their parting and the bereft feeling Corvo’d struggled with for months afterwards, tentative hope that someday, somehow, they could still meet, anger at the fact that the only time Daud thought to write, he settled for a single word on a margin of a newspaper article. 

There was so much Corvo had wanted to say, there was so much he could have written, so much yearning and longing that had demanded to tear out of him that no amounts of paper could hold. It was a beast, that longing—a terrible and uncontrollable animal that would have begun to destroy and demolish the moment it was let off the chain. Corvo couldn’t have let it. It would have consumed him. 

And as much as not writing back had hurt, he’d known that allowing himself to do so would have hurt even more.

And if he couldn’t take the leash off his longing, he could at least take the leash off himself. 

So it was that resigning as Spymaster had felt just a tad more freeing than he’d expected. And when he finally reached a point from which he felt his successors could fully take the Empire into their hands, when he finally reached a point where he could go where his heart took him, he knew exactly where that somewhere was.

And it was stupid, Corvo thought now, still looking at that paper late in the evening on a ship set for Dabokva—it was stupid how careless he was going about this whole thing, how he was jumping headfirst into uncertainty without any sort of concrete plan. Emily had been right about that, of course, but at least the excuse of aimless casual traveling worked somewhat to fool even Corvo into thinking that he didn’t truly _have_ to know what he was doing.

He’d told Emily everything. 

When he couldn’t any longer bear feeling like he was lying to her every day of his life, he told her. That was five years ago, and while Corvo knew Emily didn’t fully make peace with it, he suspected that she’d at least slowly grown to accept it. Or maybe deny and ignore it. After that first confession and following outburst, they hadn’t talked about it more than a couple of times, and only briefly—he wouldn’t know for sure what she thought now.

Maybe she had an inkling of where he was heading now and for what true purpose; maybe she didn’t and the possibility of Corvo wanting to meet Daud again never even crossed her mind. That was doubtful.

And just as doubtful was the likelihood of them meeting in the first place. Daud might not even be in Yaro anymore. He might not even be in Tyvia at all, anymore. He might have never even been there in the first place—the letter didn’t get any less anonymous than it had been when Corvo had received it—despite what his gut told him, the sender might not have even been Daud at all.

But who would go out of their way to be enigmatic and mysterious just to send something, at first glance, of no value? Funnily enough, Daud was the only person Corvo knew that wouldn’t even see the _enigmatic and mysterious_ nature of the note as just that. The more Corvo had thought about it the more it had seemed to him that, aside from security concerns, not leaving a signature of any sort—not even an encryption, or some clue—showed just how confident the sender was that Corvo would know who the letter came from.

And if Daud could be so unabashedly confident about it, then coming off as expected and being confident in return was the least Corvo could do to humor him. 

Still—a lot could happen in two years. Daud could be anywhere now. 

But Corvo had already found him once, no?

*

Corvo didn’t even step out of the Dabokva harbor upon arrival and right away boarded the next ship to Yaro. 

He’d get all the opportunities and then some to play tourist later. He couldn’t now, anyway, not with only one thing on his mind. 

Four days later he performed another change, this time from the ship to a train to take him deeper into the city. Daud had told him he used to live for a few years outside a village near Pradym. Corvo immediately made for the outskirts because, even with the new city, he doubted that Daud’s habits have changed. 

He settled in a hotel in the district Daud’s letter had come from, dropped off his things there, enjoyed a rich dinner in a tavern where he also chatted with some friendly local folk and marveled at their amicability towards outsiders. Not too long into the discussion about the country and the city itself, he learned that the nearest village to the southwest from Yaro was some forty miles away, and that it had a post office of its own. 

Postal service has improved greatly over the recent years, but homes in the suburbs and just outside main city hubs still did not get mail delivered to them directly. Daud must have been living somewhere in the stretch between Yaro and that village, in the half that was nearer to the city—unless he’d went out of his way to be purposefully misleading, but Corvo didn’t think that had been the case. 

As he sat by the window in a car of an evening train bound for Pradym and watched the snow powdering the fir-trees that glided out of sight and were replaced with new ones in the rapidly thickening dark, he thought about how much of a fucking idiot he was for going away from civilization at this time of day. As if he couldn’t bloody wait until tomorrow instead of leaving himself stranded in the middle of nowhere in an unfamiliar area, in the snow, at night— Did trains even run at night around here? Void, he didn’t even think to fucking check.

Only briefly interrupting his stream of thoughts about how much of a bad idea all of this was and that he was, once again, an idiot, Corvo got off at the only stop between Yaro and the village. He didn’t know what distance from the city that was so he couldn’t confirm his earlier theory, but in any case, seeing as Yaro was very close, trains should have been going that way fairly frequently, and so it made sense for someone to be living within walking distance from a train station unless they were purposefully trying to make their life difficult. 

When Corvo froze right to the core in a mere couple of minutes he resumed his internal self-berating, now twice as harsh as before. The cold was merciless; his fingers went numb and the pockets of his coat hardly even helped, his nose and ears burned and felt like they were about to fall off, his eyes stung and watered from the snow that fell and whirled around in a manner much more fast and overwhelming than it seemed out of the train car window. He walked as fast as he could on the wide path not yet fully covered in fresh snow, leading away from the station and towards the black wall of trees in the distance, on the backdrop of which gleamed a few lonely-looking specks of yellow light. 

People. Houses. People he didn’t know and houses of strangers.

Except one.

This couldn’t have been a worse time for wishful thinking and Corvo was torn between laughing at himself and beating himself on the head with all the strength he could muster. 

Oh, just what the fuck was he doing here?

He walked on, just because he’s come this far and currently had nowhere else to go. He walked on without hope and yet determined and persistent and he hated himself for it.

*

At least a half an hour must have passed since the last house Corvo saw on the way when he came upon another one, and soon a yellow spark amidst the dull oranges of Dark Vision grew into a persistent, warm, bright silhouette the glow of which he recognized instantly after six whole years. 

As if he wasn’t frozen to the bone already he froze at the spot, taking root in the snow. He thought he was hallucinating. 

No, this must have been real, because his heart began to thud so violently it was going to shatter his ribs. 

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be, and yet it was. It felt like a dream. It probably was, for all Corvo knew.

And if it was, he wanted—needed—it to continue. 

He was scared. This was wishful thinking, this was a mistake, this wasn’t Daud after all— but it was, it was, and he knew it. 

Corvo knew he was right and the fact that he was scared him. Because he had no idea where they stood after all these years, because he had no idea whether Daud wanted to see him at all because a simple note in an envelope could have meant anything and affirmed absolutely nothing. 

The cold was what finally forced Corvo to move towards the house. He could tell only that it was wooden, just as the others in the suburban areas, simple, and not very big—in the darkness he could see no details to distract and occupy his mind with as he took painfully slow steps through the crunchy path in the snow towards the front door.

He stopped once more right in front of it, not daring to look through the Void again and make the fact that Daud was right there, on the other side of that door, even more real and terrifying.

Breathing slow and shallow did not stop his breaths from forming into white clouds of vapor, so thick and persistent as though they were trying to expose him somehow. 

This was it. He’s come this far. He might as well just—

He stopped breathing altogether for a moment when he heard movement inside. Quiet and brief; Corvo wasn’t sure if he imagined it or if it wasn’t even anything important.

Another long moment of trying to collect himself passed, and when that failed he simply resolved to take the damn leap of faith and, not leaving any room for his thoughts to dissuade himself, pulled his numb right hand out of his pocket and brought it up to the door. 

It opened before he even had a chance to knock.

The next several seconds felt like the longest stretch of time in his life as he dumbly stared at the man he’s ached for and thought and dreamed about nearly without rest for the past six years.

And despite the moment feeling like eternity he didn’t get enough time to discern the nuances in the surprise that fumed in Daud’s eyes as the man stared back at him.

Next thing Corvo knew he was being pulled inside, the door was slammed shut behind him, his hair was tousled with two quick and rough swipes of a hand to dust off the snow gathered there, his coat was pulled off him and shaken and patted down to also be rid somewhat of the crusted snow that’s begun melting immediately in the inviting warmth of the house. 

Daud worked quickly, with a frown on his face and a few quiet grumblings of profanities under his breath—he hung the coat on one of the hooks on the wall next to the door and turned back to Corvo.

“Are your feet wet?”

Stupefied by the way his ears and nose burned from the sudden temperature change as well as everything happening in general, Corvo only blinked at him.

“Huh?”

“Your feet,” Daud repeated with a mildly impatient sigh. “Are they wet?”

With how numb they were, Corvo could hardly even tell.

“No,” he muttered, even though that probably wasn’t true. 

Daud hummed to himself and then waved him off. “Take your boots off.”

“It’s fi—”

“Take them off, I said.” Daud turned around and went somewhere deeper into the house. “And the socks,” he threw over his shoulder.

Corvo found himself in no position to argue and did as he was told, willing his hands back to life after their couple-hours-long hibernation. The warm air knocked the ice from his fingers and made them prickle; Corvo rubbed his hands together and bent and unbent his toes repeatedly as he took a moment to look around. 

The room was a combined kitchen and living area, not very big though not too small, either. Some sense of space was preserved by a somewhat humble arrangement of furniture: a table near the back wall with a couple of chairs, a small couch, a stool by the door. A pantry and a stove along with an oven—there was even one of those small electric iceboxes that have been growing in popularity recently. In the corner was also a small crafted-iron stove of the kind Yaro was famous for—judging by the couple of stacks of books on the floor next to it, the oven wasn’t used often, if at all, and mostly served as an ornament. The room itself was bathed in warm light coming from the few lamps spread out on the walls. 

Corvo didn’t even get a chance to marvel properly at how well-off Daud seemed to be living here when the owner of the house returned and put a pair of thick wool socks into his hands. 

When Corvo muttered an expression of gratitude and Daud only hummed curtly in return and monitored that the socks were put to use, he put his hands on his hips and hissed out a long sigh of something like resignation and a bit of amused disbelief. 

“Corvo,” at last, he quietly breathed out. “The fuck are you doing here?”

Once again Corvo found himself at a loss for words, so he just shrugged and tried to will down an awkward smile that tugged at the corner of his lips.

Void. 

If he thought that he’s missed Daud before, well, now that feeling was increased tenfold.

“Just passing by,” Corvo finally forced out the words and shrugged again. “You know, the usual.”

Daud stared at him for a moment longer with that bemused expression of his and then snorted, bringing up a hand to rub his eyes.

“What kind of idiot roams about outside at night, in a snowstorm, without proper clothing?”

Corvo couldn’t help a wry sheepish smile. “I’ve been asking myself exactly that for some time now.” 

Note to self—“winter” Gristol coats weren’t fit for Tyvian winters whatsoever.

Daud clicked his tongue and shook his head and, with a subtle smile of his own forming on his face, nodded at the table. “Come in,” he simply said and went over to the kitchen area. “Sit down. I’ll make tea.”

Still walking as if in a dream, Corvo did just that—hot tea right now sounded like everything he’s ever needed. He took the opportunity to look around once more, now more attentively—all in all, the place looked well-lived. Cozy. The table was partially covered by a few more books and, in general, just _stuff;_ what immediately caught the eye were the several carved wooden figures of animals, all of them no larger than his palm. They were interestingly stylized and intricate; Corvo didn’t touch them despite wanting to. Another sweep of his eyes around the room revealed more of the similar figures on the shelves and the windowsills and sprinkled in random places here and there.

“No, really, how in the Void did you end up here?” Daud broke the silence, not giving Corvo a chance to ask about the wooden figures. “Don’t tell me the witch is back again.”

Chin propped up on his hand, eyes on Daud’s back, Corvo let out a short nervous laugh. “Don’t jinx it.”

Daud snorted in return. “So everything goes well for once in your life, and you come to this barren ice rock of all places. And here I thought you were enjoying all the pleasures of retirement.”

“And I am,” Corvo argued. “I’m... traveling. Sort of.”

At that, Daud turned to glance at Corvo over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, sure. Because this right here is the first place anyone would go, obviously.”

In a sudden rush of boldness Corvo decided to test the waters. “Is it so hard to believe,” he began, speaking somewhat slow and thoughtful, “that I simply might have wanted to see you again?”

Daud went quiet, filling the silence with the soft creaks of the cupboard door and clinks of the mugs and sloshing of the pouring tea.

“What, you’ve got nothing better to do?” he said after a moment, harmless teasing notes in his voice as he set the teapot aside and tossed a small towel on top of it. When he turned around Corvo spread his hands in a sort of shrug for the sake of playing along, and when Daud set a delightfully steaming mug in front of him, immediately moved to wrap his hands around it instead.

“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you found me. Again,” Daud continued, sitting down across from Corvo, eyebrow raised. 

Corvo scoffed. “Well that’s your own fault for practically sending me your address.”

Daud furrowed his brow, looking confused, and after a moment suddenly hummed to himself and nodded. “Ah. That.”

It was Corvo’s turn to raise an eyebrow, and he did just that as he took a careful sip of his tea. “Yeah. That.”

All the questions he could ask about the letter flew out of Corvo’s head like they were never even there at all. It wasn’t important, anyway—not now, at least. 

Daud plucked up the implied topic, though, and laid it out on the table. He leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the side of his mug. “So,” he drawled, and Corvo held his stare, thinking how strange it was that years of separation made those eyes feel even more dear to him. “Former Royal Protector, huh? Never thought I’d see the day.”

Corvo chuckled quietly and thumbed his mug’s handle. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? Still feels a little strange, if I’m honest.”

“Well I’d be surprised if it didn’t.” Daud paused for a moment, then tilted his head a little to the side, eyes still fixed on Corvo’s. “It is, indeed, hard to believe that you'd ever leave your girl to someone else to watch over. But I guess even Corvo Attano can’t keep his youth forever, hm?”

A wry smile tugged at Corvo’s lips. “She’s a big girl. She’ll take care of herself.”

“Those are the last words I’d expect to hear out of your mouth.”

“Must be the age talking,” Corvo laughed. “As you said, I’m getting old.”

Daud’s lips twitched into an easy smile of his own; his eyes moved slightly up and he jerked his chin roughly at the area of Corvo’s forehead. “Well, it sure looks like it.”

It took a second for Corvo to realize what he meant. When he did, he broke into a grin and ran a hand through his hair. “Ah, well—only catching up to you, that’s all.”

At that, Daud scoffed in mock offense. “Of course you are, you little shit.” Corvo chuckled, and with another soft scoff Daud shook his head and sipped his tea. “So how’s that Royal Protector, then?”

“She’s good. Very good. Picked out and trained her myself—I’ve already known her for a few years at that point. She was an officer of the City Watch when I met her, she was too good for it even then. Impressed me right away.”

“Good skills?”

“Yes, and not just that. She’s opportunistic, very fast at thinking on her feet.” Corvo scratched his beard on the side of his jaw and smirked. “Doesn’t always do things by the book, and it works for her. She takes advantage of all the cards in her hand, always, and isn’t that the best trait you could ask for in a fighter?”

Daud took a moment to think. “Though all that wouldn’t be of much help against Void-touched, would it?”

A sigh forced itself out of Corvo’s chest and he tried to mask it by blowing on his tea. “There haven’t been any reports of black magic after Delilah. None at all.”

“That’s what you thought before the coup, too—and how’d that turn out for you?”

“I was careless then. I didn’t know what to keep an eye out for.” Corvo suppressed another sigh and took a sip from his mug. “Trust me, I haven’t been careless in these six years. _We_ haven’t been—and Jameson will continue that just as well, I know it.”

“Curnow? The Spymaster?”

“Yes, yes. Jameson, Martha— They’re good at their jobs, I don’t say that lightly.” Looking at some spot on the table, Corvo absently nodded a few times. “I still can’t believe how lucky I got. I always knew I’d have to give up my position sooner or later, obviously, but I just… never even considered the possibility of not having to be worried to death about it.”

“You’re giving luck all the credit?” Daud asked, his head propped up on his hand. “And not the way you’ve passed on what you know? Not merit?”

Corvo chuckled. “Flattering. But I can assure you that I’d have had no fucking idea what to do if I didn’t happen to meet Cottings one day. She had all the potential. She was one in a thousand. And she delivered.” Corvo shook his head slowly, as if in lingering disbelief. “She can go toe-to-toe with me and hold her own, Daud. And she’s got so much room to grow yet.”

Daud hummed and nodded slowly with approval. “Well—good. I’m glad.”

Corvo nodded as well and silence settled. It wasn’t heavy in a cumbersome or stifling way, just… saturated. Saturated with many unsaid things and buried feelings and nagging _questions_ and—

“So, uh.” Corvo cleared his throat and flitted his eyes around the room again to distract himself from the growing awkwardness in the air. “I see you’re very well-off—you got a natural gas line all the way out here?…”

Daud gave a curt shake of his head and a roguish smirk suddenly tugged at his lips. He looked proud, in a sly sort of way. “Nope. It’s all propane.”

“Propane?”

“Mhm. Cheaper, more efficient, works great. Portable, that’s the most important part—you can put it virtually anywhere. There’s a tank installed out back.”

“Huh.” Corvo raised his eyebrows. “All propane, you said? Everything runs on it?”

“Everything. The stove, the icebox, the heater, those lamps over there.”

“No way.” It was so strange to hear of technology that didn’t operate on standard whale oil fuel. Daud’s languid smile only grew, like he was genuinely enjoying Corvo’s stirring interest and wonderment. “That’s very impressive.”

Daud nodded again. “Isn’t it?” 

The enthusiasm and care Corvo could see in his eyes was making him melt.

The mere notion of Daud living this sustainable peaceful life and taking pleasure and pride in it threatened to reflect on Corvo’s face in an expression of pure joy, and he had to will down the impulse to give in lest he expose just how weak he was for this man, after all.

It was torture. It was tearing him apart to sit there and look at Daud and force his poor old heart to stay still and silent, to not let loose that river of confessions about how much he’s missed him, how much he’s longed for him, what it was doing to him to finally see him again after all this time.

“How long have you been here, then?” Corvo followed up, partly to distract himself somehow and partly because he wanted to hear all about what Daud’s seen and everywhere he’s been and everything he’s done in these past six years. He wanted to hear it all, he wanted everything.

Daud scratched his chin and furrowed his brow in thought. “Five… yeah, five years, now. Got bored of Karnaca really quick, decided that I missed the snow, came back here.”

“You changed location. You used to live near Pradym back in the day, no?”

“Yeah, well, that shack’s long gone now. Decided to switch things up a bit—and settling closer to a city was a damn good decision.”

Corvo chuckled. “I can imagine.”

“Yeah, and so this was just the perfect spot, really. Cheap land. Train station close by. So I bought this lot, built this thing up.” Daud knocked on the wall next to him twice with his knuckle. “It’s bigger and all around better than last time. Legal, too—that’s the best part.”

“Legal?” Corvo scoffed. “Since when does that concern you?”

Daud shrugged. “It doesn’t, really, but it just… feels nice. Feels right, official. Like this little home actually belongs here, you know?”

By this point Corvo knew he couldn’t keep the smile off his face and due to his inability to do anything about it he decided to stop caring.

He nodded, hummed out an affirmative, and returned to his tea.

*

Half an hour or so later, they moved up from tea to whiskey.

“You’ll have to show me that propane tank,” Corvo recalled at some point in the pause from casual caching-up conversation. It surprised him a little, how easy it was to get back into this flow of theirs, and he reveled in it while he had the chance. “Sounds like a really neat trick.”

“I will,” Daud replied, “when the storm calms down. All that snow, I had to build a little shed around the thing. Can’t have it getting too cold.”

The implication—or, at least, dumb hope of the presence of such—settled warm and fuzzy in Corvo’s chest.

It must have been present there after all, because Daud picked up on and continued with it almost instantly. 

“Speaking of which,” he said, “where’re your things? You did… bring something from Dunwall, right?”

Corvo scoffed softly. “Of course I did— They’re at a hotel, in Yaro.”

Daud nodded. “Well, regardless—you’re spending the night. I’m not letting you outside like this, and trains don’t run at night often, anyway.”

Despite the tiny jolt of hope in his gut, Corvo couldn’t help feeling like a bit of an inconvenience. 

“Sorry about just… showing up at your door like that in the middle of the night. I’m usually better than that.”

Daud looked at him for a long moment, and something like warm amusement played at his lips. “Are you, now?”

Corvo raised an eyebrow quizzically at him, Daud let out a chuckle and continued. “As far as I can tell, you’ve quite the habit of appearing out of nowhere and flipping everything you touch on its head.”

Corvo was about to open his mouth to fling an amicable objection, but there was such unyielding and disarming warmth in Daud’s eyes he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but just look back and submerge himself in it.

Another long moment later, and Corvo couldn’t go on holding in what was obvious to them both anyway.

“I had to see you,” he said quietly, almost tentatively, and suddenly couldn’t read Daud’s expression well anymore. “As soon as the opportunity presented itself, I went. It seemed kind of sudden, it felt careless, but I just…”

He trailed off, languidly shrugging off the unsaid and thumbing the rim of his empty tumbler—they only drank a glass each—as his eyes made a home on some random spot on the table’s surface. His other hand lay in his lap, and only after a moment did he realize that he was digging his nails into the heel of his palm.

And when Daud finally spoke next, the press of his nails grew in force.

“How long are you planning to stay?”

If Daud wanted him to leave, Corvo felt, he would have made that crystal clear. Seeing as he didn’t do that and instead just kept a careful guard on the emotions and thoughts he exhibited, Corvo decided to try his luck.

“Until you kick me out,” he replied in just as quiet a voice, maybe even more so. 

Daud kept sitting for a few moments longer, his expression still guarded, and then rose from his seat with a sigh. “It’s late. Let’s get you settled in.” He finished his drink and reached for Corvo’s glass and the mug that was still standing there, but Corvo was quicker and took them himself. 

“Let me,” he said, and went to the sink, pleased that Daud wasn’t objecting. Washing the dishes after himself was the absolute least he could do for all the trouble he’s brought.

The kitchen felt smaller than it looked; it even felt a little cramped with two people in it. That only spiked up Corvo’s hyperawareness of Daud’s presence as he stood so close, putting the bottle back in the pantry. Corvo found himself stalling on purpose, trying to get as much out of this moment as he could in preparation for the unknown. 

He could feel Daud with his back, he felt how he was fiddling with something at the table and then returned to put something away in one of the cupboards, how he stood behind him as if he was looking for something to do or had something to say.

Corvo slowed his motions, slowly and carefully dragging the sponge over the inside of the glass in some sort of expectancy, or maybe invitation. 

He stilled altogether when warm breath brushed the back of his neck. Just a small touch, the barest hint.

After a moment, Daud didn’t step away, and Corvo finished washing the glass, set it aside and dried his hands on the towel that was, thankfully, within reach from where he stood. He didn’t dare make any sudden movements, didn’t even dare breathe deeply lest he spook whatever… whatever it was that was happening.

That same subtle breath returned briefly to his neck and moved to the back of his shoulder, and Corvo thought he shouldn’t have been able to feel it through the fabric. Maybe he simply wanted it to be there, maybe he imagined it.

What he didn’t imagine was the weight of Daud’s chin pressing against the same place on his shoulder, a long exhale brushing against his neck that made goosebumps scatter over his entire body, and Daud’s arms tentatively but firmly wrapping around his waist.

And Corvo had to take a second to pull himself out of a small stupor and win over the lump that suddenly lodged in his throat before he was capable of doing anything at all.

When he was, he covered one of Daud’s hands with his own and clenched his eyes for a moment to assure himself that this was real.

“Daud,” he breathed out, and the hold around him tightened, but very gently Corvo made more space for himself and turned around in Daud’s arms to face him.

The look in his eyes was something out of a dream.

But all dreams faded in an instant when Corvo kissed him and his head spun with the reality of it all and the overwhelming whirl of sensations he couldn’t possibly have conjured up in his head.

Daud kissed him back with such tender care as if Corvo was the dearest thing in his life, and it made Corvo weak in the knees, and he wanted to weep with joy.

He found him.

He found him and he wasn’t letting him go again.

Their lips parted to make room for air and Daud leaned away slightly to stroke Corvo’s cheekbone with his thumb and search his eyes, look him over as if he, also, still couldn’t believe he was right here in front of him.

“You came back to me,” he whispered, and if Corvo weren’t feeling the threat of tears already, he’d definitely be feeling it now.

Corvo covered Daud’s hand with his, leaned into the touch, surrendering to a smile of pure happiness that was spilling out of him like a waterfall.

“You were the one who left, remember?” he rasped in response, and didn’t get a chance to say anything else for Daud covered his lips with his own, this time firmer, rougher, _harder,_ and all Corvo could do was hold on to him and desperately kiss him back.

When they were completely breathless they separated but didn’t pull apart, and Daud clutched Corvo in a tight embrace, pressing his face into the crook of his neck.

“You’re here,” he whispered again. “Corvo. You’re really here.”

“Yes,” Corvo whispered in return and pressed tighter against him, sending a hand into Daud’s hair, petting it, playing with it, passing it through his fingers, soaking in his warmth, memorizing every single little detail, still trying and failing to wrap his mind around it all. “I am.”

And the best part was, he wasn’t going anywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aa,aaaa,,aaand there you have it! :'D
> 
> WE'RE HERE AND EVERYONE IS HAPPY💃💃🍾🍾🍾🎉🎉🎉
> 
> Wow wtf I can't believe this is done, I'm gonna miss it
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading and enjoying, you guys are all so great and I couldn't have been happier to see such wonderful feedback for this little story that's very dear to my heart, it really is an honor. It's been a pure joy from the beginning to the end. We did it❤️
> 
> Party time


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